Problems with a poster on my site...

[gobears20]

Hi, I have had a real problem with a certain individual on my sites BBS. I can delete his user name and stuff like that. He just goes back out and gets another one.

I have tried to ban his IP, but of course he is on AOL where he can just sign off and back on with a different IP to access my site.

I am curious if I can turn this individual into AOL and let them deal with him? Will they do anything to help me? This guy has really gotten out of hand and I'm really tired of putting up with him.

[SkuZZy]

There isn't alot you can do. Just keep banning him (don't delete him though)and make sure you have E-Mail Activation on for new user sign-ups. This way, he will need to sign up with a new e-mail address. If you delete him, then he can use the same email address over and over. A few dozen bans and he will probably get tired of having to sign up for new email addresses at hotmail or whatever. You can try turning him into AOL abuse team, but they will respond with something telling you that they need tons of stuff, like server logs, the exact time that the abuse occured, ect. He isn't really doing anything that violates their TOS anyways I don't think... unless he is spamming on your forums. Best thing to do is just make signing up as hard as possible for him, meaning that he will need to sign up for a new email account each time he wants to rejoin your forums. Moderating sign-ups would also be an option.....

[drewc]

Off topic ... but really like what you've done with you site gobears20!

Good luck with the problem child.

[gobears20]

Thanks for the info. Yeah, I was figuring that nothing could really be done SkuZZy.

Hey, thanks for the compliment drewc! I can promise you, it took a long time to get the site where it is now. I wish I could say, I got the site looking like that over night. We must have changed the site up at least four different times:)

[klaus]

Two things we did or do have improved the quality of posts and keep the bad people out.

- verify email for new user signup
- prohibit hotmail.com yahoo.com cs.com email etc. Everyone has some form of legit e-mail from work or school. If not we can make exceptions. After they call in or have a reference.
- New user can not post unless we enable posting privs. That we do after they filled out their profile and it looks somewhat legit.
- make it clear that its a privilege to post nit their right as an internet user.

Its a little bit more work BUT ever since we do this EVERYONE is accountable for his post and no one steps out of line. If someone does step out of line everyone knows who it is and they hurt themselves more then anything.

btw.. still on wwwthreads..trying to do my import/conversion any day now.

[Erwin]

Originally posted by gobears20
Hi, I have had a real problem with a certain individual on my sites BBS. I can delete his user name and stuff like that. He just goes back out and gets another one.

I have tried to ban his IP, but of course he is on AOL where he can just sign off and back on with a different IP to access my site.

I am curious if I can turn this individual into AOL and let them deal with him? Will they do anything to help me? This guy has really gotten out of hand and I'm really tired of putting up with him.

Besides reporting him to AOL, there is not much you can do. The previous post to this one gives some good tips - I do all that except that I don't moderate new users. Banning free emails do help reduce the trolls. It does reduce your signups overall, but it's worth it.