What's the most efficient way to ban a new member and delete all their posts?

Technical Details

Forum version : #Invision
Position : Founder
Concerned browser(s) : Mozilla Firefox
Who the problem concerns : Yourself
Forum link :

Description of problem

With VBulletin their is an option to select a new member (who's spamming) and to ban their account and automatically delete all their forum posts, all in one option?

eg: A spammer registers as user 'dhfhjj1332' and then posts 30 spam posts/replies. What's the most efficient way to ban them and delete all their spam posts/replies/new threads?

Also, are their any options, other than manually enabling new accounts, to make it harder for spammers to register?

Thanks

Hello,

Sadly our system don't work that way.

To ban a member it's best to ban the IP address, Email address, Username,
it's never good to delete the members account.

But if you want to delete all the members posts in one go we use this system. >> SEE HERE!!

And if you want to ban a user the best method is to set them as "Banned" in their profile I assume? Which I assume "Admin Panel > Users > Ban Management > Ban a User" does?


Is it possible to do wild card IP and email bans?
eg: Ban "*@dodgyemail.com" or 999.888.777.*


And that script you've provided to delete all the message for a specified user. So you follow the instructions to say create an HTML page called "DeleteUserMessages" and then how/where do you access that? And who has access to it when?

Thanks...

NeilF wrote:And if you want to ban a user the best method is to set them as "Banned" in their profile I assume? Which I assume "Admin Panel > Users > Ban Management > Ban a User" does?


Is it possible to do wild card IP and email bans?
eg: Ban "*@dodgyemail.com" or 999.888.777.*


And that script you've provided to delete all the message for a specified user. So you follow the instructions to say create an HTML page called "DeleteUserMessages" and then how/where do you access that? And who has access to it when?

Thanks...

Yes you can ban an IP with the a wild card like this 222..332.765.* BUT this is not advised as this can ban lots of people all around the world.

As for the Email address well i think it will work but again this would be a silly move as your ban anyone with the much used Email address host's.

As for the way i gave you to delete post. You set this your own way.

Only admin's and founders can use this tool.

How i done it was to make a link in your navbar and set it to admin's only. That way only admin can see the link in your navbar.

On each members profile you should have a link at the bottom saying ban this member or something like that.

Wild card emails
"As for the Email address well i think it will work but again this would be a silly move " - In the past I've had spammers using a clearly compromised email address. eg: A company domain. And you get loads all registering from that one domain. So it's nice to be able to blanket ban that email address. eg: *@company.co.uk


Delete all messages
I've followed your lead and now as an Admin I have an option on the options "Delete All Msgs" which when I click it I get an input box with a button "Delete All Messages". So if I put a username in that field (eg: "abcd") and click "Delete All Messsages", all the posts and replies for "abcd" will be removed from the forum(s)?

Hello @NeilF ,

If you have regular (or massive) problems with spammers, you can also 1) ban the member 2) move the messages / topics in a private section and then 3) write me a PM and give the usernames of these members. (Note please that I am not available on week-ends)

This will allow us to list the emails/IP in our Anti-spam system, to delete the messages everywhere (also on other forums) and maybe do something with the email domain if used only by spammers.

NeilF wrote:Wild card emails
"As for the Email address well i think it will work but again this would be a silly move " - In the past I've had spammers using a clearly compromised email address. eg: A company domain. And you get loads all registering from that one domain. So it's nice to be able to blanket ban that email address. eg: *@company.co.uk

Yes in that case that would be a good way to ban the host that keeps getting used.

NeilF wrote:Delete all messages
I've followed your lead and now as an Admin I have an option on the options "Delete All Msgs" which when I click it I get an input box with a button "Delete All Messages". So if I put a username in that field (eg: "abcd") and click "Delete All Messsages", all the posts and replies for "abcd" will be removed from the forum(s)?

Yes if you type the members name in the type box then press the button all the comments and posts will be deleted from our servers and can't be got back so you would have to get the IP address before you use that tool.

You could always move all topic's by hand like Luzz said if you want to keep your spam comments / posts.

I only use the delete all posts system if there is lots of posts by the spammer.

Really sorry, but what do you mean by needing the IP address before using the delete all messages tool? I thought you just typed the spammers username in and pressed the "delete all messages" button and that deleted all their posts/replies? No need to mess around with IP addresses?

"Yes if you type the members name in the type box then press the button all the comments and posts will be deleted from our servers and can't be got back so you would have to get the IP address before you use that tool."


EDIT: I think I understand now. You'd need to get the IP address from their posted messages if you need an IP address. Because after you've deleted the messages, there's no way to get an IP address. ie: It's not (unfortunately) held on their profile?

NeilF wrote:"Yes if you type the members name in the type box then press the button all the comments and posts will be deleted from our servers and can't be got back so you would have to get the IP address before you use that tool."

EDIT: I think I understand now. You'd need to get the IP address from their posted messages if you need an IP address. Because after you've deleted the messages, there's no way to get an IP address. ie: It's not (unfortunately) held on their profile?

Yes that's right on all the above.

Even f they have not posted anything and is logged in, you can see the IP address in the AP.

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