Work in progress, expect frequent changes.

Please see SMF1.1:Ban list, SMF2.0:Ban list or SMF2.1:Ban list depending on the version of SMF you are using.

The Ban List sub-menu is found in Admin Center > Members > Ban List. It has four pages or tabs: Ban List, Add New Ban, Browse Ban Triggers, and Ban Log. These are all described below.

Like the Warnings System, Banning is also an optional feature, and also removes members rights, as a consequence when members have not observed the forum's rules, or expected standard of behavior. We call the removal of member rights "user limitations". Banning is the ultimate user limitation, because in certain cases, it can block a member from visiting or viewing the forum at all. Unlike the warning system, banning is not an automatically controlled feature, and is entirely subjective, usually a permission reserved only for administrators. For this reason, banning is a step which should be seriously considered, and not handed out frivolously.

Ban List

Until version 2.1, this feature was called the "Ban Log" . The new version of the Ban Log is described below. Now this feature is called Ban List, and is used to list members who have been banned from participating in the forum. There are different levels, or strengths of banning, which will be explained below.

This table has eight columns:

• Ban name - This is the username of the member who was banned.
• Notes - Here, you can place any special notes about the ban, which moderators or administrators want to share privately with each other.
• Reason - This is what the banned member was told was the reason they were banned.
• Added - This is the date of the banning.
• Expires - This is when the ban will expire, if it will expire.
• Triggers - This setting is for any or all of four kinds of data which are watched for by the software, to determine when a banned member tries to visit: IP address, Membername, Email Address, Hostname (owner of the email address domain).
• Actions - This is the severity of the ban: full, partial, or how partial.
• checkbox - This is used to remove entries from this table, by clicking Remove Selected button. There is no button to clear this log all at once. However, by clicking the checkbox in the column title area, it checks all the boxes in the table. Then Remove Selected button has the same effect that a Clear Log button has.

Add New Ban

This is the form for adding newly banned members to the Ban List. It's at Admin Center > Members menu > Ban List > Add New Ban. To complete the eight columns in the table, this form has seven fields which the administrator needs to fill in, for each banned member.

• Ban name - Enter a name you want to give to the ban. This would usually be the member's username.
• Reason - This is what the banned member was told, is the reason they were banned.
• Notes - Any special notes about the ban, which moderators or administrators want to privately share with each other, can be filled in here.
• Expiration - This is when the ban will expire, if it will expire.
  • Never - This is a permanent ban, unless the adminstrator someday decides to rescind it.
  • Ban will expire after blank number of days - Whatever severity of the ban, it will expire after the set number of days.
  • Expired / disabled -
• Restriction - This is the severity of the ban: full, partial, or how partial.
  • Full Ban - This will prevent the member from even viewing the forum. They cannot access it in any way. If they browse to the forum's address, they will see a message, something like 'You have been banned and cannot access this forum.'
  • Partial Ban - This sets the severity of the ban: full, partial, or how partial; by using the four options below:
    • Cannot post - This option turns the forum into a read-only forum for the banned member. They will only be able to read the forum, but not participate in any other way. The member will see a warning message, explaining this condition.
    • Cannot register - The option prevents the banned member from trying to register again as a new member, using the same trigger variables, or pieces of data which are explained just below: username, email address, IP address or hostname. This is no longer a very strong prevention method, since it has become so easy to get free email addresses, these days.
    • Cannot login - This option prevents the member from logging in to their original account.
    • Partial ban with no extra options selected -
• Triggers - Any or all of four kinds of data which are watched for by the software, to determine when a banned member tries to visit. The software can watch for the IP address, Hostname (owner of the email address domain), Email Address, or Membername.
  • IP Address - To ban a user by their IP you need all or part of it. You can usually obtain this from your forum. See their user tracking page to find it. A complete IP address will always have four sections of numbers (127.0.0.1 is an example). Inputting their full IP for a ban is okay, but is not always useful if this user has a dynamic IP or dial up. If you ban their IP, and they subsequently are able to log in successfully, it means they probably have a dynamic IP or dial up. However, most ISPs, even if they are dynamic, start with the same numbers (127.0 for example). If you put a ban on a user with the full IP 127.0.0.1, and the next day they show up with the IP 127.0.0.2, it means the first few numbers are the same. You can, therefore, still ban them, by just typing in the first three sections of the address: 127.0.0.* instead of the full IP address. This works in most cases but some users' IPs still change after you ban them. This also does not stop them from using a proxy to visit your website.
  • Ban with a Hostname - A hostname is a string of characters used to identify the owner of the email address domain. Selecting this option might ban anyone who uses the same Internet Service Provider (ISP) or email address provider. For example, you probably do not want to ban whatever is the hostname for gmail.com. So be careful about using this option.
  • Ban by Email Address - You can ban a user by their e-mail address. You can do this in two ways. You can ban them by their full e-mail address or by part of their e-mail address. Banning a user by their full e-mail address is usually sufficient. Sometimes, however, a user may have numerous e-mail addresses. If the banned member uses a custom e-mail service which is not used by many people, instead of typing in their full e-mail address, type in something like *@whatever.com. However you can't use this trick if they use a large e-mail providers like hotmail and gmail, because you'll accidentally ban a lot of members or even guests or visitors.
  • Ban By Username - To ban a member by their username, just type in their username. This will prevent the member from rejoining with that name; however, that member could register with another username. Keep in mind if a user is banned by username and their account is deleted, the ban will be deleted along with it. So keep this in mind when banning by username.

Browse Ban Triggers

When you ban someone, you need to enter one or more of the following variables, which are also known as Ban Triggers. That's because when the server recognizes one of those pieces of data, it "triggers" the software to make an entry in the Ban Log, indicating that user tried to access the forum, despite their ban. These four variables, pieces of data, or triggers, are: the member's username, their email address, IP address, and hostname.

This shows all the ban triggers on your forum. The default page shows all of the ban triggers by IP address. You can display ban triggers by hostname, e-mail, or username by clicking on one of the following links:

IP | Hostname | Email | Username

If you are viewing IP bans, for example, it will list the banned IP addresses; whereas, if you are viewing e-mail bans, you will see a list of banned email addresses. Next to this is the ban name and the number of hits the ban has. The last column with the checkbox is if you want to select any bans to remove using the the "Remove selected ban triggers" button.

Ban Log

This page shows a list of all of the users you have banned. It lists their IP, e-mail address, username, and date when they were banned.

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