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Allow us to view the profiles of Banned Members


Sazama Ichida

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Short Answer: A pretty good reason would be 'IPB sucks'.

 

Long Answer: I'm not sure if banned profiles not being visible are something that's alterable. If there's a switch for it somewhere in the Admin CP, or if it's a built-in part of the board sofrware we use. If the former, then the entire matter is a way of approach that the staff use. If the later, there's not much of a damn thing anyone can do about it. The only way would be to have some custom CSS coding done, but the only two people on the entire Poniverse staff who can do that are busy 24/7, and have a list of things to do that make things like this a lackluster priority.

 

So, first question is not 'can we have this plz', it's, 'is this possible without tedious hours of custom scripting'?

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I think it should be possible if this forum uses VBulletin Coding. I definitely recall it being possible on forums similar to this one.

This forum is based on IP.Board, but I don't know if it's possible to view profiles of banned members on other IPB forums.

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@Asbel Lhant, by default the profiles of banned users are not accessible with IPB. You may be familiar with a non commercial software such as VBulletin  or phpBB, but I assure you as someone who is familiar with both phpBB and VB, outside of the same server side scripting language, their frameworks are not interchangeable. 

 

 

 

But anyway I humbly request that this be done if it can be please.

 

Might I inquire why? Your previous posts don't appear to make a specific case on why you would need to view a profile of a user who is no longer permitted to access the forum, or even a case on how this would benefit the community in general. As with most requests, if the advantages are obviously something that would be of value to users, we always consider requests. Personally, I'm not seeing a benefit outside of general curiosity. The banned users posts are always of historical record so their contribution is still public. 


 

 

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@Asbel Lhant, by default the profiles of banned users are not accessible with IPB. You may be familiar with a non commercial software such as VBulletin  or phpBB, but I assure you as someone who is familiar with both phpBB and VB, outside of the same server side scripting language, their frameworks are not interchangeable. 

 

 

 

 

Might I inquire why? Your previous posts don't appear to make a specific case on why you would need to view a profile of a user who is no longer permitted to access the forum, or even a case on how this would benefit the community in general. As with most requests, if the advantages are obviously something that would be of value to users, we always consider requests. Personally, I'm not seeing a benefit outside of general curiosity. The banned users posts are always of historical record so their contribution is still public. 

Well sometimes I want to look back for old time's sake and such. And sometimes someone who ends up getting banned turns out to be a friend of mine. And I like to check their profile to see if they have a Skype or something that I could use to still contact them with.

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The White Shinigami

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I'm not sure if banned profiles not being visible are something that's alterable

 

I wasn't able to find any setting in the ACP to change this. Moderators and administrators can view the profiles of banned members as that's needed for our work. It's possible that IPB only allows people with a certain level of site access (i.e. moderators) to view banned profiles, and that might only be able to be altered manually. I don't know whether that's possible or, if so, plausible.

 

Additionally, I do not feel that users should be able to view the profiles of banned members. If they could, that could generate confusion: someone might contact someone expecting a response and never get one if the individual is banned. That confusion could be compounded by the fact that banned members are still able to login, and their last time online statistic will reflect that.

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Well sometimes I want to look back for old time's sake and such. And sometimes someone who ends up getting banned turns out to be a friend of mine. And I like to check their profile to see if they have a Skype or something that I could use to still contact them with.

I find this to be a solid reason to make banned user profiles accessible. The banned user may still decide if they want their contact info accessible on their page, correct?

 

 

 

Additionally, I do not feel that users should be able to view the profiles of banned members. If they could, that could generate confusion: someone might contact someone expecting a response and never get one if the individual is banned. That confusion could be compounded by the fact that banned members are still able to login, and their last time online statistic will reflect that.

From what I know about vBulletin boards, banned users profiles are still accessible but any functions of communication within the site like PMs and profile messages are disabled. These boards also have a user title or pip/rank indicating a user as banned*. Another method I've seen in other places is the username struck out like this. It may be best for all blogs by the user to be locked upon the ban.

 

With privacy as a concern, only their profile Overview would be kept public and their About Me erased or made inaccessible to regular users. Everything from Profile Feed to Donations would be hidden from the public. With respect to Asbel Lhant's point, their contact information would remain available but may be taken down if requested.

 

Reasonable enough?

 

 

*You know, thinking about a pip or rank indicating a banned user, I can already see it as being The Mare In The Moon with "BANNED" written at the bottom. /tangent

Edited by SunBurn
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I'm a bit surprised nobody suggested this before I did. But anyway the banned user would obviously not have any control over their profile though.

Edited by Asbel Lhant

The White Shinigami

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Users have suggested this before in other associated threads. Clients of the software we use have requested this before as well. I say that last part to underscore a point that SCS made above. IPB (this is not vBulletin) does not have this feature built in. It would require custom alteration. At present the developers are working on other time intensive projects. Opportunity cost is a factor that we have to consider.

 

I'm not saying that this is a bad idea, or one that won't happen, it just won't be anytime in the immediate future.

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