Banning vs disabling vs deleting vs blocking.

[augiesannie]

Forum URL: sound-of-music-fics.freeforums.net/

Hello and thanks for eleven great years.  Our forum is not as active as it once was, but it does connect a small group of us in a wonderful ongoing way.  Recently three people have registered who don’t seem to have any interest in the topic, and they all provided commercial website links in their registration which makes me think they are getting something from registering but I don’t know what.  I emailed and messaged them asking about their interest and got no reply.  (Note we also have new members who clearly “belong,” so I can tell the difference).  They haven’t spammed us or anything (I know what to do with those registrations) but I want to keep them out of our forum but even after perusing the library of support articles Im not sure what the difference is  Thank you!  

[Craig]

Hi

Generally, it all comes down to personal preference, and you can also use a combination of the options.

For example, if it is a spam account, you can ban the ip and global account and then delete the account.

Generally, banning or disabling the account ( only the account, not the ip and global account as that is long term ) is more for if you want to stop someone from using the account for a certain period of time.

Banning the account and disabling the account are essentially the same thing. People use the disable option if, for example, the member asks you to disable their account for a period of time.

This used to happen, for example, when someone had exams coming up and didn't want the distraction.

Whereas banning is more for troublesome members you want to have a break from. The result is the same with each option.

When it comes to deleting the account. Doing this alone will not help prevent that person creating another account with the same email address or ip address, which is why you should first ban these if you were to delete the account.

If you have banned the account, it then comes down to a couple of considerations as to whether you delete the account.

Firstly, if you delete the account, then the nme of the account will no longer show against posts that that account made, potentially ruining the flow of the forum.

Secondly, is there a possibility that you would consider unbanning the account in the future.

That has hopefully helped you a little, but not sure if it has actually fully answered your question, so if you have any follow up questions, please let us know