Cpdn moderators have recently had to ban a member from one of our two boinc forums. We have very little previous experience of the procedure. We expected, on clicking the Ban button, that an email message box would appear so that the member could be informed of the reasons for the ban. No email box appeared, so the only way we could send him an email was to delete one of his posts and use the email box there.

Is there really no email message box on any of the boinc forums for moderators to use when a member is banned? Or has cpdn got its forum settings for admins and moderators wrong?

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I tried it on Renderfarm@Home, which has the latest server software. Banishing users doesn't even work, new security added against XSS-like attacks isn't correctly implemented in forum_moderate_post.php?action=banish_user, and clicking "Yes, banish" says the link timed out. Bug.

I wonder how old the CPDN backend is.

Current server software doesn't give moderators the option to ban (check on NHAH, RF and BOINC). But older versions do (check at QMC).

Maybe I'll create a test account at QMC to check what happens when I try to ban someone.

I'll keep you posted.

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Kathryn :o)

OK. Here's the scoop.

I created a test account at QMC. Made a post. Logged back in with my usual ID and banned the test account.

It asked me if I was sure and I said yes. And then gave me the message that the test account had been banned. But nothing about notifying the owner of the test account.

And I promptly received an email for the test account that it had been banned. Text follows...

This email is to inform you that you will not be able to
post to the QMC@HOME message boards for two weeks,
because your postings have not followed our guidelines.

�

Not sure what the question mark is for....


Mo, my suspicion is that CPDN and QMC are running similar versions of the backend seeing as we both have that ban option. So my guess is that an email did go out to the member you banned. But it would be nice to see a message that the member was notified.

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Kathryn :o)

Thanks for the information, Kathryn.

On cpdn, what we want is a facility for the mod or admin carrying out the banning to send a personalised email to the recalcitrant member. This means an email box needs to appear so we can fill in the text. This sort of box already appears when we delete a post, so we can explain the specific reasons for the action.

It seems unreasonable for members to receive a personal explanation when their post is deleted, but only a standard response when the more serious sanction of banning is imposed.

In the case in question, the only way to communicate the reasons for the banning to the member was to first delete one of his posts and fill in the email box that appeared - but giving the reasons for the banning. Then he was banned.

If more mods or admins on other forums could describe what happens when they ban a member, it would help. When you click the Ban button, do you get the chance to send the member a personalised email?

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If more mods or admins on other forums could describe what happens when they ban a member, it would help. When you click the Ban button, do you get the chance to send the member a personalised email?

Pirates@Home has implemented this already in their forums. I'm sure that when it's working as it should be, that Eric will give the necessary code changes to Rytis.

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Presumably this means that sooner or later it will be implemented for all boinc forums? You could maybe pass on the request.....

(We could then let former banned members vote on whether they think it's a good feature!)

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I pointed Eric to this thread already and asked him if the code was ready for implementation in the main code. Either he'll say something here or he'll tell me through other means. But even if both Eric and Rytis think it's good code, it's still up to Dr. Anderson to give the OK. Perhaps some pressure from CPDN Admin(s) can make it go faster.

But ahem, does that mean CPDN is going to update their forum code then? ;-)

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I agree that there needs to be something in addition to that canned email that goes out to a banned member.

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Kathryn :o)

In just over a year of being a CPDN + BBC/CCE mod, it's only the second time we've had to resort to the extreme measure of banishing a user :-( Not a good day for any of us, but we couldn't see an alternative.

A way of informing the user of the reasons for the ban would be highly appreciated.

An update of the forum code to the most recent version would be good, in particular the new thread locking functionality will come in useful.

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To clarify my previous message: on the latest BOINC forum code, the feature to banish a user is broken, not working, because of new security measures added to the PHP code, that aren't correctly implemented for that link. That needs to be fixed in addition to the message box being added.

"Yes, banish" should also be a button, not a link, submitting via HTTP POST instead of GET method.

To follow up...

I sent an email to David and Rom and cc: to Rytis (who I believe is managing the forum code now).

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Kathryn :o)

I will fix the issue in the evening when I'm back from work; I will also add a text box, if noone does that before me.

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As Jord mentioned, I've created a new user management page for the ops/ control panel which gives you the ability you seek. It shows general info about the user, then has two input forms, one for banning users (for a number of different intervals) with a reason sent to them via e-mail. The other to easily set their special_user bits.

I was going to submit this to Rytis, but you can get it now and try it out if you like.

We've tested this on Pirates@Home, where I only gave the banning permission to myself, not to moderators. I found it useful to make the red-X report box a link to this new page instead (since it means nothing for me to report to myself). I was also going to suggest that to Rytis.

There is some stuff in the current version which 'touches' a user on a co-located wiki. You should be able to comment that out and the page will work, but let me know if you need help with it.

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

I've created a new user management page for the ops/ control panel which gives you the ability you seek. It shows general info about the user, then has two input forms, one for banning users (for a number of different intervals) with a reason sent to them via e-mail. The other to easily set their special_user bits.

Guess I should add a link: http://pirates.spy-hill.net/help/manage_user.php

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-- Eric Myers

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats

Thanks everybody for all the time and effort. I think this forum feature is an important one.

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