Xenforo introduce a discourage group as a default mod. Put member whom you don't like in this group. He may randomly redirect to other page, longer delay of loading a page etc. Should anyone use this feature? When to use it?
It is a similar idea to the old "Tachy goes to Coventry - Miserable User's" feature of the vb 3 series and the "Global Ignore" of the 4 series. There are times it is useful, esp for members who are banned, stick them in the "Miserable User's" group and even if the do sign on, they get such horrid page loads, it's not worth their time. But it's done very carefully, IF at all.
Its only useful if its one of those clever troll. Who are hard to ban because of how slick they are. I've used the ignore before and am not afraid to use it again. Nice feature.
I don't really like this idea on any software. If I don't like someone on a given forum, I'll just ignore them. On my own forum, as long as they aren't doing anything really bad, again, I'll just try to ignore them unless they really start to cause trouble.
This feature is great . Especially for those nubs who use proxies to get past an ip ban, or have a dynamic ip address like myself.
Yea my ip is dynamic also... its cool, i tried it, I put a test user in the group and it made the forum load real slow, and sometimes didnt even load, and would give random errors. I think its great too.
Rather than put them in a special group, I think if there is a problem member, alert all the admins and mods of the issues. Log it in the warning/ban forum (hidden from members), send the member a warning, raise his warning level. Let the member know, up front why and what the actions will be if it continues. Some members will correct themselves, some won't. I have found if the member is really being an issue, it will correct itself either by quiting the site or complete ban. Usually by banning. I recently had a member that thought he could post anything he wanted, that didnt last long.
If the member is always breaking rules and the moderation team have already warned him a few times, he deserves to be put in this rank.
I still prefer to give someone a IP Ban over this, but this is a great feature to make someone go away that you dont want to hurt their feeling, like if you have a annoying friend and you cant ban him, so you would just put him in this group.
I remember an old forum I used to frequent where banned members would be automatically sent to a forum with loads of spinning images and such. Was actually quite funny but may not be appropriate for more serious forums.
