I have a banned user with a personal grudge who has created another account under a different identity to try and post slanderous crap & banned that account too. What actions can I take and what would you all recommend? Also, with banned users in general, I don't want them to be counted in the member tally or have them listed (and therefore contactable). I also don't them coming up as the newest member.
I remove everything in their profile, and also ban their IP.
There is nothing that can stop any user from accessing any other computer connected to any other IP and creating more havoc on your site..
You have to deal with it the best way you can..
To competely remove their details you would have to edit the database..
Or lock your forum to "Admin approved" new members before they can gain access.
Life's a blueberry...
1. Ban the IP
2.
Delete the account
3. Turn on Admin Activation
Most importantly, never let 'em see ya sweat! Don't get angry or frustrated (not openly anyway). Laugh at the guy and encourage others to do so. Make him a big joke. It's no fun for him if he's not aggravating you. If he gets the idea that banning him repeatedly is FUN for you, it'll kill the buzz
Well I'd banned both accounts. So that would count as banning the IP? Or is it a seperate option? Sorry if that's a silly question. I ended up deleting the account and turning on AA
Banning the IP is a separate function in the Admin CP... I'm sure you'll find it and work it out...
Banning thru cpanel is also good and refuses them entire site access, just not the forum
I had some idiot pasting some real threatening stuff on my forum against me. I dinged him, he came back, I dinged him again! He then found a way to post on the "Technical Support" forum which was the only forum open to guests posting (in case someone had trouble logging in etc)
I banned his IP, banned the user names and emails he logged in under, disabled the technical support post function and admin approved the forum.
I then "unapproved" the threads so only admin/mods could see them and screen shot printed them for evidence. I then sent these along with the web log reports to his IP provider where they banned him from use of their service for breach of the TOS.
You will find the banning options for IP and user name in the Admin CP, board settings, banning options.
Hope that helps! and as said earlier, don't lose your temper with them, and make it a game about deleting. They will soon get bored. Mine did!
Be extremely cautious when banning IP's, as you could end up banning yourself.
If the offender is on the same server as you, and you ban a whole range of IP addresses then you may find your IP address is banned also..
Hemi's suggestion is a better option; if you screw up... you can change it.
If you don't have access to something like cPanel to control your server access etc, you could edit the .htaccess file... (which is what cPanel does) to stop the IP address from accessing your webspace...
And that! you can always reverse quite simply with ftp (or cPanel etc,) if things go wrong....
I hasten to add that I wasn't banning a range of IPs, just the one associated with him.