Please make better banning/security features AND make it easier to remove banned users material!

[BeePOD]

When an unruly user is banned all they have to do is make another account and come right back! This is unacceptable if I were to ever have a pay account, also I just spent over 90 minutes going through and deleting a banned users content, no one wants to see "DELETED BY USER" messages littered all throughout the forum next to a blank icon that says "BANNED USER" under it! This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed! As it is now the ONLY way to manually delete them is to delete there post AND all replies which really is no good because it not only removes the banned users material but also ALL the replies that other users have made, these issues need to be fixed! Thank you...

[GregChapman]

I note that most of your posts to the support forum concern troubles with unwanted posts and unwanted users.

If the forum you are having problems is this one:
http://city-dump.1057322.n5.nabble.com/
then I think your fundamental problem is that you have no security in place. Fix this so that only trusted users can post and 99% of your problems will disappear.

The Nabble service does NOT operate on mail list principles, where an administrator expects to moderate posts once made, rather you are expected to approve users and trust them to post appropriately. You need to implement some form of approval process.

Currently you allow "Anyone" to post. Most Administrators will remove that permission from the "Anyone" group and only allow members of the "Registered" group to post. (It's the lowest level of security and ensures you have a valid email address for them.)

You might want to go further and insist on some further approval process be performed and then grant the next level of approval, "Membership", and allow posting rights only members.

Inevitably, while you allow "Anyone" to post you do leave your forum open to abuse.

[BeePOD]

No thats not the forum I am having trouble with...  I am just having trouble with one troll/hater on mt http://bpods-forum.1064914.n5.nabble.com/  forum, I wish I could IP ban him... How do I get to the security/administrator settings? Is there a way to make new accounts to where I have to approve them before they are accepted? If so how do I get to those settings? I cant seem to find them because I am a NOob... Thanks...

[GregChapman]

BeePOD wrote

I am just having trouble with one troll/hater on mt http://bpods-forum.1064914.n5.nabble.com/  forum, I wish I could IP ban him... How do I get to the security/administrator settings? Is there a way to make new accounts to where I have to approve them before they are accepted? If so how do I get to those settings? I cant seem to find them because I am a NOob... Thanks...

I have an explanation of the basics in a post at:
http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/Moderating-free-forum-tp6873076p6873871.html
I see that you have already worked out how to prevent "Anyone" from seeing your problem forum. I am guessing that you have also already edited the default permissions so that only "Registered" users may post. However, by itself, that doesn't help, as the move to "Registered" is automatic and, as Admin, you can't control which users do that.

As you have discovered, banning is an extremely crude weapon as any user can simply re-register with a new address and Nabble has no built-in tools to examine a user's IP address. You would need to do that look-up independently.

So, apart from using an external approach to IP look-up the conventional approach is to echo Nabble's approach. On this forum only "Members" can post in "Premium Support" while "Registered" users may post in "Free Support". Nabble demands payment to to become a member, but most forum admins would work on a trust basis. Once the newly registered user has demonstrated reasonable posting practice over a period of time, they are granted "Member" status and can post in additional areas.

Of course, this approach assumes that there must be a real benefit in membership. Here it is that you can get customisation to your forum done for you and speedier definitive replies to problems. In my forum, at:
http://www.seahawk17.plus.com/forum.htm
that benefit is in being able to post your own questions and not just see other people's who may not be directly relevant to your case. (You'll see I demand a post in "Introduce Yourself" before you get full posting rights and I have a special classes members called "Seller" and "MyBoat" that allow different kinds of benefits for different kinds of user. It all helps ensure that people can't post in inappropriate areas - though I'm lucky, given that my audience is generally on the mature and computer naive side, my aim is to ensure that posts get made in the appropriate area, rather than stopping the flame wars more often seen in forums populated by juveniles.)

Creating sub-forums where members can have different posting and viewing rights is another vital tool in your armoury. I always created a "Moderated Posts" sub-forum, which I make invisible to everyone except "Administrators". If I want to remove a particular post I move it to that sub-forum. This is so much better than deleting a post as you keep the precise evidence of the wrong-doing and can quote it back to the user at any point.

Because replies to a deleted post disappear along with the offensive post, it also means that if others have responded with legitimate material to the offensive post before you read it, you can move their posts back to the original forum, so nothing, except the bad post, is lost.

I would also suggest that you consider having a rule, posted in a general FAQ, that discourages others from responding to inappropriate posts asking that moderation is left to the administrators. I note that you make reference to removing all posts of a banned poster. Obviously, it may not apply in your case, but, in general, I believe that is a bad policy. I'd suggest that individual acceptable posts ought to be left in place. Not only does it demonstrate to the banned user and others what is acceptable on your forum it demonstrates a fairness that might encourage the user to behave better should he return to the forum under a new address.

[BeePOD]

Is there a sign in to get to an admin console of some type to change the new members approval process? The way it is now just anyone is automatically approved when they sign up and I would like to change that to where I need to approve the sign up before they are able to post anything, it seems like I seen that before but forget how to access it... Thanks for your help...

[GregChapman]

BeePOD wrote

Is there a sign in to get to an admin console of some type to change the new members approval process?

Just login in under your Admin username. Then follow the guidance in the post I mentioned earlier:
http://nabble-support.1.n2.nabble.com/Moderating-free-forum-tp6873076p6873871.html

The way it is now just anyone is automatically approved when they sign up

The answer is in that message. I explain what the default permissions are for both the "Anyone" and "Registered" groups, how to get notification of when someone registers, and how you can then implement further control by only allowing "Members" to post, explaining that that part must be done manually.

It is up to you as to the hoops that you ask any aspiring member to jump through. You might send them a detailed list of rules and ask them to confirm they will stick by them. You could ask them to send you a cash deposit that will be forfeit if they misbehave, or just warn them that all unacceptable posts will be removed.