Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Squeegy]

So, here's something that might interest you folks:

It's entirely possible within the SMF software to "subforum ban" or "board ban" people, preventing them from posting within a specific board (like General Discussion) without outright banning them from the entire forum. Here's how it works: The forum has "membergroups," most notably Escaped Lunatic and Bay Watcher, through which permissions are handled. Toady One is in the membergroup "The Great," which gives him full administrative access over the entire forum. ThreeToe is "The Natural," which may be a renamed Global Moderator. Escaped Lunatic and Bay Watcher are post count-based membergroups, like these (click the images to expand them):



In order to ban people from a board, you would simply make a new membergroup, like so:



Note that the group is set to "Invisible." This means that normal users can't see that the person is in this membergroup. They would just appear as a Bay Watcher. This membergroup inherits all its permissions from the Normal Members default group, so right now it does nothing. The finishing touch is to go into the board of your choice and do this:



Now anyone in that membergroup can no longer access that board. To add people into that group, you go to their profiles, and change their Account Settings:



Boom. They can no longer cause problems on that board. You can issue a warning to the user to let them know, and nobody will be able to see that they're in that group and discriminate against them for it. I think that this could be used to eliminate troublesome posters from General Discussion or any other place where they exhibit poor self-control or are unable to play well with others, without permanently banning them from the entire forum. The setup is very minimal, and it has few downsides, if any. It's also more configurable than I demonstrated here; you can restrict certain functions, like posting, through permissions setups, rather than completely banning them from the board. I'd like to know what you all think of it.

[Orange Wizard]

So that's why no-one can see the old VN posts any more.

[Criptfeind]

That's pretty cool (even if I don't think it would be of that much use, most people who get banned are just generally disruptive assholes in general, it probably wouldn't help to just cut them out of one area. But it's certainly cool.)

[Squeegy]

That's pretty cool (even if I don't think it would be of that much use, most people who get banned are just generally disruptive assholes in general, it probably wouldn't help to just cut them out of one area. But it's certainly cool.)

Well, this would allow you to board ban people who aren't disruptive enough to merit a full ban, but who aren't responding to warnings or mutes, or something. It's not necessarily a ban replacement, just another punishment to mete out. For instance, if someone is terribly disruptive in the lower boards, but perfectly agreeable in the Dwarf Fortress category, you can keep them from derailing the politics threads without forcing them to abandon their succession fortresses. This is, after all, a Dwarf Fortress forum. Ultimately it's up to the judgment of the administrator how this tool might be used. But I'm personally for anything that cuts down on permabans.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think there's much point in this.  Toady can just say "stop getting into arguments or I'll ban you" if he doesn't want someone being disruptive in future, locking them out of (for instance) GD would just randomly bar them from the white noise threads while also not preventing them from getting into a fight in OG or FG&R.

So that's why no-one can see the old VN posts any more.

A few people who were around at the time still can, I assume there's a special usergroup for it.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[4maskwolf]

So that's why no-one can see the old VN posts any more.

Huh.  yeah, I was wondering how some people were allowed to do that while most weren't.

I think there are some people this would actually be useful for, particularly those who are banned for getting into fights specifically in GD (which is perhaps the most volatile subforum).  If they are otherwise good people who have difficulty avoiding fights in this section of the forum (particularly around contraverisal isssues), banning them from posting here while allowing them to post everywhere else makes a certain amount of sense.  There are some people who are just across-the-board obnoxious, like most of the people who get banned, but apparently some people, like burningpet, were actually relatively nice otherwise and were banned for a specific issue causing them to flip out.

[nenjin]

Not listening to moderator warnings or taking them seriously is cause for a forum ban. So. The only way I see this being useful is some sort of clique ban, which I'm sure he has zero interest in wading into or supporting.

[Orange Wizard]

So that's why no-one can see the old VN posts any more.

A few people who were around at the time still can, I assume there's a special usergroup for it.

Pretty much what I was thinking, yeah.

[Squeegy]

So that's why no-one can see the old VN posts any more.

Huh.  yeah, I was wondering how some people were allowed to do that while most weren't.

I think there are some people this would actually be useful for, particularly those who are banned for getting into fights specifically in GD (which is perhaps the most volatile subforum).  If they are otherwise good people who have difficulty avoiding fights in this section of the forum (particularly around contraverisal isssues), banning them from posting here while allowing them to post everywhere else makes a certain amount of sense.  There are some people who are just across-the-board obnoxious, like most of the people who get banned, but apparently some people, like burningpet, were actually relatively nice otherwise and were banned for a specific issue causing them to flip out.

Yes, I noticed that many people lamented burningpet's banning, saying he was otherwise a nice guy.

[Flying Dice]

He's probably also the only example that comes to mind regarding people who could be effectively dealt with by a board ban.


That's not to say that it's not an interesting mechanic; I remember there being a similar thing on that forum Dsarker and I admined for a while and it's handy for a number of reasons.

[Squeegy]

Frankly, I think there are several other people whom it could be applied to currently who otherwise wouldn't receive anything. Since it's not as severe as a ban and more targeted than a mute, you could hand it out more readily to people who are being pests.

[Leafsnail]

Again Toady could just tell people not to do things in that case.

[4maskwolf]

Here's the thing.  If it's how Toady is keeping VN out of the public eye, he knows about the system.  He's also chosen to use the current system of mutes and bans.  I think that speaks for itself.

[Squeegy]

Your statement is entirely dependent on an "if." And even if that if is true, it's entirely possible he doesn't know that it can be used this way or hasn't thought about it like that. So it doesn't speak for itself at all.