Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

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copernicus142
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Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by copernicus142 »

Hi

I think that because of the constant creation of new spam topics in my forum. I would need a button in the "Moderation queue", for example beside the "Disapprove" button, to instantly disapprove a topic and ban permanently the user who created the topic.

It should also work to instantly mark all 25 topics in the "Moderation queue" and disapprove the topics and ban permanently the users behind these topics in 1 click without any reason for the permanent ban or with some reason for the whole sum of the 25 permanent bans.

I hope you understand that this is a very needed function in the "Moderation queue" for me, who am Polish and that you add the function so that phpBB becomes better.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by KevC »

It's easier just to stop the spam.

A non-searchable Q&A and several other options, are all highly effective at that.
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copernicus142
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by copernicus142 »

I am trying to stop spam by permanently banning the user accounts that are used to create the spam topics. I searched for some more phpBB information because of you and found information about captchas and extensions. I still believe that the function I propose in the "Moderation queue" would enhance the phpBB forum system.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by KevC »

That's pointless. They rarely use the same one twice and it just makes your ban table huge. You need to stop them being able to register in the first place. Then you don't need the change you're proposing because those posts won't even be there.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by copernicus142 »

Okey. So I ban them by e-mail and delete their accounts and all their posts now. :)

I wonder though, what does the permanent ban in "Moderator Control Panel" do? Does it ban both the IP and the e-mail of the user?
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by KevC »

Just don't bother with the ban at all. I just delete them. But they don't normally get that far anyway.

Perma ban means they cannot make an account with any of that information again. There are also temporary bans that are time limited.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by copernicus142 »

So a permanent ban would block people using an specific IP address that has been used for spamming in my phpBB forum?
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by KevC »

Yes but like I say they rarely use the same information twice so there isn't much point. It just makes your ban tables huge and that slows down normal people registering because it has to first hunt through hundreds of banned addresses to see if that users one is on the list.

The only things worth banning are the email domains, such as *@mail.ru and *@yandex.ru and any others that pop up from a bunch of accounts at the same time.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by david63 »

copernicus142 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:23 am a permanent ban would block people using an specific IP address
The danger with doing that is that with dynamic IP addresses a banned IP address can subsequently be allocated to a "good" member, meaning that they would not be able access the board and would get very annoyed when they found that they were banned.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by thecoalman »

I don't necessarily disagree with the idea but I would like to see something more comprehensive that performs a variety of tasks including moving them into new dedicated group for spammers. The issue with deleting is they can use the email to register again, if everyone was doing that they would wise up and just keep re-registering accounts.

I understand the issue about the ban table growing too large and that is where the spammer group would come in. Once placed in that group you would have cron task to purge those accounts after a year or whatever time frame.
copernicus142 wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 10:23 am So a permanent ban would block people using an specific IP address that has been used for spamming in my phpBB forum?
When you ban by username by default the email is banned assuming you have not enabled reuse of email addresses.

The way I currently handle spammers is I have dedicated trash where spam posts are moved, that is set to prune after 2 years. The username is banned, the account is deactivated. I also prune user accounts with no activity in two years with 0 posts which will remove the spammer accounts entirely at that 2 year mark.
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Mick
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by Mick »

Or stop them before they can get up to nonsense?
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by thecoalman »

You can't stop them all but I only get 2 or 3 spammers that post each week and none of them appear to be automated. There is various things I'm doing either outside of phpBB or within phpBB.
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by Mick »

But in the majority of cases a good Q&A + NRU works well and is simple to implement. There’s no need for anything more complicated.
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copernicus142
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by copernicus142 »

Okay so now I think that I save some time and clicking by putting spammer-accounts into a group called "Spammers" and later I can prune this group when I see fit (delete posts and accounts only). I don't ban their emails now because I think that there are clever hackers out there and they maybe use innocent people's e-mail accounts to register on my forum. :geek:
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Re: Disapprove topics & Permanent bans directly, in "Moderation queue"

Post by thecoalman »

thecoalman wrote: Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:38 pm When you ban by username by default the email is banned assuming you have not enabled reuse of email addresses.
This could be better stated. If you have not enabled reuse of email addresses it's effectively banned once someone uses it to register.

Mick wrote: Fri Sep 24, 2021 9:11 am But in the majority of cases a good Q&A + NRU works well and is simple to implement. There’s no need for anything more complicated.
Personally I don't mind short term complication for long term benefits. Some of the things I'm doing are in addition to the Q&A in the background. The Q&A works well but I'm probably going to test to see I need it anymore. NRU because I prefer my users have a seamless experience.

Getting back to the OP as I said I don't necessarily disagree with the idea, I have long advocated for better tools to handle spammers. Spam is easily the most time consuming part of operating a forum and in the end it provides no benefit other than keeping your forum clean. A one click solution like the ban hammer with a more comprehensive set of actions is what I would like to see.
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