Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
January 28, 2016, 02:03:58 am
One of our administrators was asking me why we have spam that sticks around for so long, that we need our original Banhammer script back (which I have since reinstated, after porting it from IPS Board to ElkArte). He also asked why he can't simply ban people and delete all their posts from the moderation reports view, which simply offers to close or delete the reports. I guess we're all used to using the Banhammer, where it's a one click operation to ban a user and empty all of their profile fields, with a single confirmation. Then after banning, it was a one click operation to unapprove all of their posts and topics, which was deemed an easier to externally script action than actually deleting posts and topics to the trash forum. Of course, emptying profile fields isn't really necessary nowadays, since we disable guests from viewing the member list or member profiles.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #1 – January 28, 2016, 02:58:10 am
emanuele
Global Moderator
Yep, that should be part of a "revamp of the moderation center" that I never found very useful nor friendly.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #2 – January 28, 2016, 04:16:40 am
Is there a topic about how we want that revamp to be? I think it's mostly cosmetic but the theme is very important.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #3 – January 28, 2016, 08:30:37 am
emanuele
Global Moderator
No, don't think so (I have one but it's in my mind). My idea of revamp would be mostly procedural and where things are presented more than how.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #5 – January 29, 2016, 02:26:20 pm
emanuele
Global Moderator
nods nods Interesting stuff.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #6 – January 30, 2016, 03:29:57 pm
With BadBehavior with http:BL and SpamHaus running, I think the amount of bans will be reduced greatly. In fact, I would say that it almost doesn't make sense to keep your own bans for spambots because those services handle it on their own and update much faster than we can. I would install the mod_spamhaus and mod_httpbl Apache extensions if it is a problem. To ensure it is fast, I would run a local DNS server to handle caching. So, I love the ideas and I think they should be implemented, but a lot of the pain of keeping all of those spambots banned can be alleviated by enabling those features that we already have.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #8 – January 30, 2016, 06:19:21 pm
Did you setup the http:BL API key? That's essential. SpamHaus is specifically designed for email but it can also work with forum posts. I'd like to get some more information about your spammers. Can you send me IPs? It would be great if you could check your access log and find their user agents. Or, just send me your access log and I'll get it (just need the poster IP).
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #9 – January 30, 2016, 07:39:09 pm
What about SpamHaus? I checked the source for Bad Behavior, and the bb2_blackhole() filter that checks SpamHaus is currently unused. I was thinking of inserting it back in, mainly so I can add a particular DNSBL to the check list.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #10 – January 30, 2016, 08:30:08 pm
Hah, I'm rewriting BB and I didn't even notice that. Thanks. I wonder if SpamHaus works better than http:BL or at least complimentary. The only problem is speed. Like I said, I would set these up in Apache instead of running them in PHP. Better to block spammers before they get that far.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #11 – January 30, 2016, 10:39:21 pm
I'd like to set them up in Nginx, since that's what I use. Key point about that blackhole.inc.php is that the bb_blackhole function checks standard DNS block lists and has an optional argument for response IP addresses to ignore. The HTTP:bl function, on the other hand, also checks that the HTTP:bl API key is configured, attaches that to the query, and then checks the lower three fields of the return IP address for various info. The D field contains some info about which type of host it is (full 0 here means it's a search engine), C contains the threat level, and B contains the age of the entry. A, of course, is still 127.
Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center
Reply #12 – January 31, 2016, 04:02:10 pm
BadBehavior doesn't do any checking of patterns. So, I am thinking that it might make sense to not load it on every page and instead just load it for pages that have form inputs. This is the most important thing, right? It does search engine checking but that's really just double work for our own search engine checking. If anything, it does less work than we do. If we enable http:BL or fix the code for SpamHaus, we're doing a lot of checking and slowing down guest requests. If there is a search engine that we didn't catch before this, we're lowering our SEO.