What can banned accounts do?

[achow101]

What exactly can a banned account do? What can they read, what can they change, etc.

I want to know this because I may have the account that I use for part of my account price estimator banned (as in ask a staff member to give it a permaban). I would want this because I fear I may one day accidentally publish the password for the account on giving when I publish each new code update. I don't want random people to be able to access the account and post from it. However before making such a request, I need to know whether having that account banned will work for my purposes.

Also, having that account banned wouldn't get me banned for ban evasion since I will have requested that it be banned, right?

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[botany]

Is the ban going to be applied manually or through the autoban button? Both are perma-bans.
The results might be different based on that.
If you asked a staff (and not an admin) to ban an account, it is probably an autoban.

There are 2 types of bans.

Autobans. Isn't what it sounds like, it means someone pressed the ban button, but it's automatically carried out, as opposed to be manually entered. Though there is a mod or two running scripts because of the spammers. This results in the message You were banned by a forum moderator, email xxx. Both global mods and admins use this, so it isn't a guarantee it was a moderator, just more likely. I use autoban instead of manual bans for permanent bans because it's faster and more efficient. All bans in the modlog are autobans, and permanent.

Autobans ban the account involved only, you can still log in and do everything normally, just can't post or pm. It also adds units of evil to the IPs used, a new account created using these IPs will need to pay a fee. Units of evil increase with additional bans. Nuking is essentially an autoban+deletion of posts.

Manual bans are only available to admins, and are generally configured the same way as above, though it's possible to increase the scope of the ban to include things like registering from certain emails/providers, ips, subnets, hostnames, etc. Can also add multiple accounts to the same ban. It's also possible to prevent banned users from logging in at all using the banned account, this will prevent them from being able to read the forum and access pm's too though, so I rarely use it. These result in the customized reason for the ban+duration, insubstantial posts or whatever.

[achow101]

Is the ban going to be applied manually or through the autoban button? Both are perma-bans.
The results might be different based on that.
If you asked a staff (and not an admin) to ban an account, it is probably an autoban.

There are 2 types of bans.

Autobans. Isn't what it sounds like, it means someone pressed the ban button, but it's automatically carried out, as opposed to be manually entered. Though there is a mod or two running scripts because of the spammers. This results in the message You were banned by a forum moderator, email xxx. Both global mods and admins use this, so it isn't a guarantee it was a moderator, just more likely. I use autoban instead of manual bans for permanent bans because it's faster and more efficient. All bans in the modlog are autobans, and permanent.

Autobans ban the account involved only, you can still log in and do everything normally, just can't post or pm. It also adds units of evil to the IPs used, a new account created using these IPs will need to pay a fee. Units of evil increase with additional bans. Nuking is essentially an autoban+deletion of posts.

Manual bans are only available to admins, and are generally configured the same way as above, though it's possible to increase the scope of the ban to include things like registering from certain emails/providers, ips, subnets, hostnames, etc. Can also add multiple accounts to the same ban. It's also possible to prevent banned users from logging in at all using the banned account, this will prevent them from being able to read the forum and access pm's too though, so I rarely use it. These result in the customized reason for the ban+duration, insubstantial posts or whatever.

Well that mostly answers my question.

I would want the lightest permaban possible (can do everything but post and pm) so an autoban would be fine, except for the units of evil. Since those add units of evil, I would prefer if the account was manually banned.

I will pm BB and theymos about this tomorrow, thanks for the help Botany.

[Quickseller]

Why don't you just sign up for a new account via tor that will certainly be proxybanned when you sign up and the result will essentially be the same, but without the intervention of the forum administration

[mexxer-2]

Why don't you just sign up for a new account via tor that will certainly be proxybanned when you sign up and the result will essentially be the same, but without the intervention of the forum administration

Not quite getting what you're saying here as I've tried creating accounts from TOR and they work(aren't banned) fine.

[hilariousandco]

What do you need the account to actually do? Banned accounts can't post or message so not sure what use a banned account would be to your bot unless you want to update profile info or something (but still don't see how that's relevant to your bot).

Why don't you just sign up for a new account via tor that will certainly be proxybanned when you sign up and the result will essentially be the same, but without the intervention of the forum administration

Not quite getting what you're saying here as I've tried creating accounts from TOR and they work(aren't banned) fine.

They should be proxxybanned ie you need to pay a fee before you can post.

[mexxer-2]

What do you need the account to actually do?

I believe he needs it for determining the trust rating. Can't find any other reason

They should be proxxybanned ie you need to pay a fee before you can post.

Ah right , that.

[botany]

I would want this because I fear I may one day accidentally publish the password for the account on giving when I publish each new code update. I don't want random people to be able to access the account and post from it.

Come to think of it, if the password does get revealed, nothing would stop users from changing the password.
So all your effort would be in vain.

[Soros Shorts]

I would want this because I fear I may one day accidentally publish the password for the account on giving when I publish each new code update. I don't want random people to be able to access the account and post from it.

Come to think of it, if the password does get revealed, nothing would stop users from changing the password.
So all your effort would be in vain.

Seems like the potential problem would better be prevented through better software engineering and release management practices. Asking the forum to provide a limited functionality (banned) account for a very specific software may not be ideal. What if later the forum changes how banned accounts work and the software stops working?

[onemorexmr]

IMHO if one of your accounts is banned your's is banned also.. AFAIK its not accounts which gets banned its the person behind it.
wouldnt it be easier to just change the password to something random and forget that string?

[achow101]

What do you need the account to actually do?

I believe he needs it for determining the trust rating. Can't find any other reason

That's pretty much it. If someone were to access that account, they could change who it trusts which could mess up a lot of stuff.

Now that I think about it, I want that account to be manually banned in a way that most of the profile info cannot be changed, the trust list cannot be changed, and the password cannot be changed. Is that possible?

Seems like the potential problem would better be prevented through better software engineering and release management practices. Asking the forum to provide a limited functionality (banned) account for a very specific software may not be ideal. What if later the forum changes how banned accounts work and the software stops working?

This is a plan B, in case I forget to do plan A which is to be careful when publishing the source.

[onemorexmr]

This is a plan B, in case I forget to do plan A which is to be careful when publishing the source.

i solve this usually by keeping the configuration (or at least a subsection of it) outside of git.
eg in /etc or /home/user/.etc