can FM track IPs of those that send messages through the contact form

I keep receiving obscene and increasingly threatening  messages from the contact form at the bottom of the forum.
Obviously I cannot see which IP they come from, but as the level of hate and bile appears to be ramping up I am thinking of contacting the police and I am sure that they will require IP's to track down the perpetrator, although I have a pretty good idea who it is.

what is the procedure to find that info. there must be a log somewhere.

Isn't an email address left when the contact forum is used?

Derri wrote:Isn't an email address left when the contact forum is used?

an email address is required, but it doesn't ahve to be a valid email address. Perhaps if FM instituted some form of email checking the problem would go away.

Well if worst came to worst you could give the police the email address and they might be able to work with that.

However I can't comment on exactly what you're asking as I don't know but I was just pointing that out

Hope you get this resolved, good luck!

I really do not know if Forumotion tracks IP addresses of people who use the contact form.

I had the same problem on my forum. Some other forums have also had problems with the report abuse footer link. See post here-

https://help.forumotion.com/t126923-remove-the-report-an-abuse-footer-link

Yes it would be better if FM recorded the IP address of the user who sends the contact for or fill in the report abuse link. Then you could just ban the IP address. 

At the moment the only way to know a users IP address is if they post. Or if they are viewing the forum as a guest to catch them online the same time as you are.

You could simply ban the range of IPs from guests or ex-banned members. Though I don't know if FM enables you to ban by ISP. I disabled the contact form on my forum as i did not like the captcha. 

What you could do is ban the email address and maybe disable the contact form. Then just give your members a private email address,(sent by PM not posted public on the forum,) where they can contact a forum admin or moderator if they need to. That's what I did on my forum.

Derri wrote:Well if worst came to worst you could give the police the email address and they might be able to work with that.

However I can't comment on exactly what you're asking as I don't know but I was just pointing that out

Hope you get this resolved, good luck!

the email address is made up and pretty vile in itsef

SLGray wrote:I really do not know if Forumotion tracks IP addresses of people who use the contact form.

you would have thought that it logs everything.

Andrea Borman wrote:I had the same problem on my forum. Some other forums have also had problems with the report abuse footer link. See post here-

https://help.forumotion.com/t126923-remove-the-report-an-abuse-footer-link

Yes it would be better if FM recorded the IP address of the user who sends the contact for or fill in the report abuse link. Then you could just ban the IP address. 

At the moment the only way to know a users IP address is if they post. Or if they are viewing the forum as a guest to catch them online the same time as you are.

You could simply ban the range of IPs from guests or ex-banned members. Though I don't know if FM enables you to ban by ISP. I disabled the contact form on my forum as i did not like the captcha. 

What you could do is ban the email address and maybe disable the contact form. Then just give your members a private email address,(sent by PM not posted public on the forum,) where they can contact a forum admin or moderator if they need to. That's what I did on my forum.

There is a difference between the report abuse button and then contact form.

Derri wrote:There is a difference between the report abuse button and then contact form.

Yes but you cannot track the IP on either of them. As they don't record the IP address of the person who fills out either forms.

Flappypaddles wrote:I keep receiving obscene and increasingly threatening  messages from the contact form at the bottom of the forum.
Obviously I cannot see which IP they come from, but as the level of hate and bile appears to be ramping up I am thinking of contacting the police and I am sure that they will require IP's to track down the perpetrator, although I have a pretty good idea who it is.

what is the procedure to find that info. there must be a log somewhere.

Hello,

The law requires from any service provider to keep a record of all the actions that takes place on the sites it hosts. Even if the administrator does not have access to the details.

However, we can not provide those information to any one but the competent legal authorities after solicitation

Flappypaddles wrote:

Derri wrote:Well if worst came to worst you could give the police the email address and they might be able to work with that.

However I can't comment on exactly what you're asking as I don't know but I was just pointing that out

Hope you get this resolved, good luck!

the email address is made up and pretty vile in itsef

Flappypaddles wrote:

SLGray wrote:I really do not know if Forumotion tracks IP addresses of people who use the contact form.

you would have thought that it logs everything.

Please don't double/triple post. Your post need to be separated by 24 hours before bumping, replying or adding more information. Please use the edit button instead!

Since this is your third reminder, you have received a warning.

The GodFather has posted that Forumotion does keep a record of everything that happens on a forum, but they can only give that information to the correct authorities when requested for legal issues.

The Godfather wrote:

Flappypaddles wrote:I keep receiving obscene and increasingly threatening  messages from the contact form at the bottom of the forum.
Obviously I cannot see which IP they come from, but as the level of hate and bile appears to be ramping up I am thinking of contacting the police and I am sure that they will require IP's to track down the perpetrator, although I have a pretty good idea who it is.

what is the procedure to find that info. there must be a log somewhere.

Hello,

The law requires from any service provider to keep a record of all the actions that takes place on the sites it hosts. Even if the administrator does not have access to the details.

However, we can not provide those information to any one but the competent legal authorities after solicitation

so there is a record that the authorities could request then. I didn't expect it to be handed over to me

Flappypaddles wrote:

The Godfather wrote:

Flappypaddles wrote:I keep receiving obscene and increasingly threatening  messages from the contact form at the bottom of the forum.
Obviously I cannot see which IP they come from, but as the level of hate and bile appears to be ramping up I am thinking of contacting the police and I am sure that they will require IP's to track down the perpetrator, although I have a pretty good idea who it is.

what is the procedure to find that info. there must be a log somewhere.

Hello,

The law requires from any service provider to keep a record of all the actions that takes place on the sites it hosts. Even if the administrator does not have access to the details.

However, we can not provide those information to any one but the competent legal authorities after solicitation

so there is a record that the authorities could request then. I didn't expect it to be handed over to me

Correct. If the authorities ask Forumotion for the information, they would hand over the information to the authorities.

SLGray wrote:

Flappypaddles wrote:

The Godfather wrote:

Flappypaddles wrote:I keep receiving obscene and increasingly threatening  messages from the contact form at the bottom of the forum.
Obviously I cannot see which IP they come from, but as the level of hate and bile appears to be ramping up I am thinking of contacting the police and I am sure that they will require IP's to track down the perpetrator, although I have a pretty good idea who it is.

what is the procedure to find that info. there must be a log somewhere.

Hello,

The law requires from any service provider to keep a record of all the actions that takes place on the sites it hosts. Even if the administrator does not have access to the details.

However, we can not provide those information to any one but the competent legal authorities after solicitation

so there is a record that the authorities could request then. I didn't expect it to be handed over to me

Correct.  If the authorities ask Forumotion for the information, they would hand over the information to the authorities.

is there a time limit on how long the info is kept?

Flappypaddles wrote:is there a time limit on how long the info is kept?

I believe it is kept for 5/6 years.
I could however be incorrect, Godfather will further correct me.

The legal authorities you speak with will have to provide a physical (paper) letter to E-Toxic, the mother of FM.

RadioHead wrote:

Flappypaddles wrote:is there a time limit on how long the info is kept?

I believe it is kept for 5/6 years.
I could however be incorrect, Godfather will further correct me.

The legal authorities you speak with will have to provide a physical (paper) letter to E-Toxic, the mother of FM.

thanks
I will have to see if the messages continue before deciding what to do.
the person sending them is an alcoholic who I had to ban from my forum for his behaviour and he has been sending messages on a regular basis since then, however recently they have become more personal, nasty and threatening.