Options to sort of delete a user / good "ban"

[Bill-SWJ]

I have a user who is dropping off the net for a while, and insists on "cleaning up his account so it is not hanging around out there for 6 months."

Just to get it done, I opted to delete. Worked fine, I like the way vBulletin handles the "guest" post with preservation of the post and the text of the username, though removal of the userid/profile/etc. Have tracked the many threads on delete vs ban, but did not want to ban for the negative connotation.

But it got me to thinking (dangerous)...

I'm wondering how I can achieve similar but reversible effects, using something like a banned user group but less negative, such as "Suspended at Member's Request."

Does anyone do something similar?

The Usergroup Options setting for "This Usergroup is not a 'Banned' Group" note says:
Setting this to no will cause the group to be treated as a banned group, this will prevent the sending of email notifications, show a banned error message on the permission error pages and other unspecified behaviours.

A couple of points I'm curious about, will tinker, would appreciate your insights:
- I want to make sure e-mail and PM are fully disabled, both in and out. Will that ban setting really handle it? Or will I need to go in via other settings and their individual user account to disable?
- I figure I can edit the phrase for that banned error message to take some of the edge off it, but won't be able to differentiate between one for the really-banned usergroup and one for the friendly-fake-banned usergroup, since it is only one phrase.
- Is there a way to disable their profile from being viewed at all (without hiding all their posts)? I see how to stop it at the usergroup level from being seen in the member's list, but you can still get to it via their old posts.
- What other unspecified behaviours?

Finally, one unexpected item. From documentation and notices along the way when deleting the user, I was expecting to get some kind of choice re how to handle their posts. But I only got the one choice (treat as guest). Are there other option(s) built-in, that maybe I have to enable somewhere?

[Jake Bunce]

You can create a new banned usergroup with a different name and user title to achieve the desired separation between "good" ban and "bad" ban. You will end up having two banned groups.

Banned users cannot do anything (no outgoing email or PM). Other users can still email the banned user, but they cannot PM the banned user.

There is no option to disable viewing of banned profiles.

There are no options given for the handling of posts when deleting a user. It always turns them to "guest." If you wish to delete their posts or anything, then you need to do that before deleting their account. Once the association is lost you can no longer manage that user's posts specifically.

You can use a conditional like this in the header to display a special notice for your "good" bans:

<if condition="$bbuserinfo[usergroupid] == [color=red]X[/color]">
	<br />
	<div align="left" style="color: red; background-color: white; border: 1px solid black; padding:2px">
		You are a good ban.  Blah blah blah.
	</div>
</if>

Where X is the usergroupid of the "good" ban group.

[Bill-SWJ]

Jake, I dropped this item for a while and lost this thread, but am back on it now. Appreciate your earlier helpful reply. That'll work. Thanks.