So heres the deal. I run a web forum for my fellow Skidmore students on my server. Its a simple phpbb 2.0.20 forum that only has about 30 users right now. Recently we managed to pick up a whopper of a troll. I'm not quite sure how he found us, but he's taken up residence and doesn't seem to want to leave. He's also very good. He seems to have an endless supply of proxies so ban doesn't work, is unphased by post and account deletions, got around the phpbb antitroll hack that uses cookies to make trolls lives miserable (took him a day but he figured it out) and has started harrassing our users through AIM. I'm at my wits end and seriously annoyed. I have no idea what he has against us or why he'd want to pester little old us, but he won't go away and short of admin account activation and making all the forum's private I'm out of ways to get rid of him. And I really don't want to do either of those.
Anyone have any ideas on how to get rid of him? He is unashamedly a troll (his first SN was Super_Troll and since then he's gone through a number of them all rather rude and crude and unabashedly trolling). Has hatrack ever had any of these? How'd you get rid of them?
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
is there any way you can make it so you have to be approved when you register?
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
That's pretty much what admin account activation is.
Alcon, why don't you want to do that?
Is it possible it's a student who has a major grudge?
Posted by Morbo (Member # 5309) on :
Wow, some trolling is inevitable on any forum, but this guy is making a career out of it.
Have you started a thread on this topic on your own forum? Your fellow users input could be helpful.
Posted by Papa Janitor (Member # 7795) on :
I'd appreciate it if no Hatrack members use this thread to identify which other members they believe to be trolls. Thank you.
As to the original question, the only really persistent trolling that happened at Hatrack was in the Young Writers Forum, and the Cards removed the forum. I don't think that's the solution you're looking for.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
But papa, I was just going to say that superstation is a troll.
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
Could you use some sort of invitation system, similar to what gmail uses?
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I use the same software, and I've found the account email activation to be painless.
I don't know why you don't do that.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
quote:Originally posted by breyerchic04: But papa, I was just going to say that superstation is a troll.
Pfft. Superstation is a kobald.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote:I use the same software, and I've found the account email activation to be painless.
I don't know why you don't do that.
Becuase I wouldn't put it past this guy to go register a million different e-mail addresses on Yahoo and I don't know how to restrict it to Skidmore.edu e-mails... I suppose I could just ban every e-mail site that's none skidmore.edu...
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
If I understand account activation correctly, you could just approve the ones you believe to be real. And what I've done for my yahoo groups is email anyone who requests to join, if they don't reply, they don't get in. That way you can still let in people who use yahoo addresses if they are legit.
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
Noemon, I'm sure yours is funnier, but I can't figure out what you mean, even using wikipedia.
Ok the links below this thread talk about genital warts, why?
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I don't think that mine was funnier--it just built on yours. You said he was a troll. Trolls are usually depicted as being massive brutes. In D&D, kobalds are relatively small, relatively puny monsterous race. It's common for DMs to throw lots of kobalds at low level parties, since they're an enemy that even 1st level player characters can take on and survive. Since Superstation is still relatively small, that was the monster I went with.
Posted by lem (Member # 6914) on :
quote:I'd appreciate it if no Hatrack members use this thread to identify which other members they believe to be trolls. Thank you.
I think he is afraid of being outed. Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Ok, I found some mods to do exactly this for me. I installed them and they seem to be working. I fixed up e-mail account activation and that is working too. If this doesn't keep him out...
Posted by MrSquicky (Member # 1802) on :
I think you might mean kobold, which is the name of a specific creature race.
A kobald is the generic name for any goblinoid without hair.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Email registration is good.
Also, if it's at all possible in the format, place a mandatory delay between the registration of an account and the time where a new user is allowed to post. Many wise (or burnt) forums make it so that you have to wait a set amount of time before your new account is allowed to post (a week or so, usually).
Combine this with a secret 'trial period' of posting (where entries have to be approved for the first X days), and you've got a pretty good low-maintenance buffer against trolling ad nauseum.
In the meantime, supplant your e-bastion by making casual offhand reference to the peculiarity of someone wanting to expend so much effort just to scum up a forum.
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
Noemon, I guess you mean /D&D nerd/ kobold /D&D nerd/ :-)
Posted by Primal Curve (Member # 3587) on :
If he has a school email address, it'd be really easy to track him down and beat the ever living crap out of him.
Posted by Papa Moose (Member # 1992) on :
quote:He seems to have an endless supply of proxies so ban doesn't work
Posted by Demonstrocity (Member # 9579) on :
quote:Originally posted by Primal Curve: If he has a school email address, it'd be really easy to track him down and beat the ever living crap out of him.
This is typically my favorite solution to problems. Real world vengeance for internet abuses tends to discourage repeat offenses.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
quote: quote:Originally posted by Primal Curve: If he has a school email address, it'd be really easy to track him down and beat the ever living crap out of him.
This is typically my favorite solution to problems. Real world vengeance for internet abuses tends to discourage repeat offenses.
It would be nice, but he doesn't. I don't think he's from Skidmore. But if he does, then you can bet I'll be tracking him down and beating the everlivin crap out of him... and then some.
Posted by The Pixiest (Member # 1863) on :
I thought this thread was going to be about Pillowpants and Listerfiend...
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
Trolls feed on attention, and shrivel in the light. That might help.
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
Trolls feed on attention, and shrivel in the light. That might help.
Feed on attention part I get, but they can be hard to ignore sometimes... specially when they start iming users.
The shrivel in the light? How exactly do you shine a light on them in cyberspace?
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
First, you need a REALLY BIG light.
Next, you need tubes. Lots and lots of tubes.
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
I sent a troll on saturday at 10am... it didn't arrive till yesterday... WHY???
This Troll is not a dump truck people.
Have you tried contacting the internet police?
I am serious about this, I mean, why not call your ISP and get some technical wizards to find this guy and like, snuff him out or something. I don't know how messy you want to get. I could make a few calls...
Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
I think we'd better not mention to Sen. Tubes that the internet has trolls. He might think they're a threat to national security and shut down the internet.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
That would really block those tubes!
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
No, no. The trolls live under the tubes.
Posted by blacwolve (Member # 2972) on :
We had a huge problem here with Trolls a couple of years back. Registration was shut down for months.
There were a couple of benefits. When registration came back up again we got a lot of really awesome newbies who'd been waiting around for months to get on. Also, IMHO, the hatrack community got a lot stronger.
Of course, we were getting some new blood by giving screennames that hatrackers had registered and never used to people we could verify weren't trolls, so we weren't completely stagnant.
Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
Alcon, glad you found a solution that seemed to be working.
I was wondering if there was a way to have an administrative "ignore" function. Basically, could you set it up so that the troll can see all posts, but nobody can see his posts?
He'd figure it out if he had other IDs, of course, but you'd also know if those IDs were his if he ever mentioned things like "hey, where's <insert trollname>'s posts?"
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)