Many of you are probably tired of those trolls, flamers or even ass hats. but the first thing you must do is identify these users. After you have done so, we recommend this step to step process of keeping these users off and making them lose interest in your forum.
Step 1: Ban the user
The first thing you need to do is ban them, ban them both by ip and email, after you have done this move them to the banned usergroup.
Step 2: Redirect banned users
Medtech has developed a cleaver way of hiding your website from banned users. you can view his mod here (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=198962). Or you can copy the code below and place it in your forums header template.
Alright well its obvious that someone will create a fake email and get on your forums if you didn't activate email verification. However alot of users complain that they don't receive their emails. Also when a user registers and uses a fake email or doesn't activate their account they are annoyingly placed in the unactivated user group, to resolve this issue please use this mod, It requires users to validate their email before registering. Also they cannot use any other email than the validated one unless they validate another.
The mod is known as vMail (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=201466)
Step 4: Cleaver Tactics
There are other various mods that supposed to be able to block or detect proxies and I recommend them because they will cut down some proxy usage but the chances of it blocking are slim. You also need to keep an eye out for this user if they do return. It also helps to find ways of extending the registration process by using stuff such as enhanced image verification (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=132482). Don't forget to disable multiple accounts!!!
Step 5: Good luck
All I can say is good luck and hope this helped! There are many other methods you can try but I have used these and they seem to help. Also as for the banned member redirection, make it less obvious that they were banned, have the m redirected to a page that makes it look like the site doesn't exist anymore or what ever you want.
How does this block banned users? All they have to do is use another email address and a proxy(if they are not already on a dynamic IP) and they are in.
Although your suggestions 2,3 and 4 certainly are good to keep your board healthy, they do not keep banned members out.
The purpose of this is to make banned users lose interest in your board. Registration takes a few minutes based on creating a new email every time you have been banned. Also not everyone is proxy smart and doubtful that they are running a dynamic IP without proper setup, also you have to take in account that the redirection if done right the user can possibly be fooled into thinking the site is down or does not exist, redirection methods could be to another page on your site that states the forum is down for maintenance when it really isnt.
Statistics for my board is that 1 out of 10 users figure out that they were banned and make a new email along with a proxy. which is very good because a lot of users don't realize that their banned if redirected to a page if used strategically like I pointed out. You can never keep a forum 100% protected from ass hats after banning, but this whole setup makes it 10x easier to keep them at bay.
Have you gone trough all the hacks available here on vb.org?
I applaud your effort to create this article. I suggest that you check out these hacks and add them. Combined they can get you much better results.
disposable mail ban list (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=142546&highlight=banned+email+list)
Is Bot: Registration Time Check (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=135094)
Multiple Account Detection & Prevention (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=199077) or Multiple account login detector (AE Detector) (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=125871)
Miserable Users (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=197484) (This includes an option to redirect members to another site and more than replaces the 'redirect banned members' hack. It allows you to troll the trolls as well.)
Check4SPAM - Advanced SPAM Search & Destroy! (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=173490)
Proxy IP to Real IP Conversion (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=201211)
IpInfo -- Extra user IP information (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=179362)
Track all Duplicate IP Addresses via Admin CP (http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=91633)
Default vb option: tachy goes to Coventry, which works great in combination with miserable users.
And there are other useful hacks, but the problem with posting them here, is that your banned members can read this too.
The proxy mods donot work as well as peope think,. I have used all of the ones I could vind here on vbulletin.org and franlky im dissapointed, i have had all of my staf and several memebrs use all kidns of proxiesand they all were able to get on and non of them were converted to the origional ip niether. the only proxy that was blocked si the ones that are based on the computer itself, but there are many prioxy sites that break through includign a list at proxy.org
checking for duplicate IP is useless when you have the extended IP information it does the same thing. also multiple account detection doesn't catch every account, I have found some people get on multiple accounts and where not detected because they were on their school computer or library.
miserable users doesn't work as well if the person figures out whats really happenin,give used it b4 and a user figured it out and made a new account using a proxy.
Granite the multiple login detector does help a bit, so does login hacks and read PM, many mods do help but they dont always work. Apparently many people forgot how to be an admin, it doesnt mean using all these fancy mods that most dont even catch even half of the problem. frankly it does help a little but its nothing compared to having a plan that works
the point is to get them to lose interest youll never be able to permanently block them, it only takes a little bit of server side to get back on, or a proxy and dont say there is proxy blocking methods, there are bypasses with proxies and many of them can be easily googled, You can never perfectly block a proxy without blocking everyone else
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Screw it you wanan know the perfect way to keep asshats out. well here you go