Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center

Topic: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center (Read 3101 times) previous topic - next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

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

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

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 #4 – January 29, 2016, 02:15:48 am

Honestly, I'd love the ban interface to be more convenient, especially from the User Profile ban option. Currently, it creates a custom ban every time you do this, if you want to add the user to a current ban you have to navigate into the Admin CP and manually add the name (without the aid of pre-filled fields for email, IP and hostname, too

). Which is obnoxious, because it means bans for similar offenses (e.g. spammer, trolling, harassment, common stuff that you give the same message and restrictions to) have to be painstakingly entered manually or the message re-written each time. And then the Ban List gets cluttered with all the individual bans, and it becomes a management hell.

What would be nice is to create several ban groups, a la membergroups. The message, expiration(from the time added to the ban group, although adding a fourth "Ban will expire on X date" option might be useful) and restrictions would all be the same for ban group members. This would allow users to be added to the ban group from their user profile, which would allow for the pre-filled fields for email, IP and hostname, or allow a custom ban (which is the current implementation).

Re: Ban user, delete all their posts, directly from moderation center

Reply #5 – January 29, 2016, 02:26:20 pm

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 #7 – January 30, 2016, 03:40:04 pm

Quote from: derived – January 30, 2016, 10:42:12 amSo maybe work on make it all more direct and easy at it's base.
And offer a addon for the grouping and record keeping side of it.

Usually this means, let someone make a mod. And in all the years of SMF and Elkarte, no one has thought to do so for bans, despite their management being as cumbersome as it was on Day 1. So, I can't see someone actually doing this.

So no, I don't think it should be left to a mod.

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.