Ban by IP address

[alextr98]

Title
Ban by IP address

Short, concise description of the idea
Please implement ban to comment by IP address

Full description of the idea
ban_set should allow use IP address or block of IP addresses
An ordered list of benefits

• Helps to fight spam and bots

An ordered list of problems/issues involved

• Some legitimate users may be blocked to post comments

Comments

[trixieleitz]

Not even live with - my IP address is one of a handful used by my ISP, and location detection often places me in completely the wrong city, let alone household.

[lady_angelina]

This especially happens when you use a mobile device that uses a proxy server/DNS. If my BlackBerry's IP number is to be believed, then I live clear across the country from where I actually live. =P Plus with mobile, it doesn't even keep the same IP number even between page loads. I think that blackberry.com just reassigns new ones to users all the time.

Not to mention that my IP number at work is static for EVERYONE (and my employer has over 15,000 employees). It's the same one whether you're using a workstation in my employer's IT department or in one of its file rooms clear across town.

In short, if you were to ban by IP number or even a block of IP numbers, you could be nailing innocent bystanders, which isn't fair to them.

[azurelunatic]

Which of these two scenarios would you say is more unfair?

Because of the bad behavior of a handful of people, several thousand or hundred thousand potential anonymous commenters are banned.

Because of the bad behavior of a handful of people, all anonymous commenters ever are banned.

[azurelunatic]

Would this be only for anonymous comments, or would it extend to users commenting under their logged in name as well?

I actually support the idea of allowing journal owners to ban anonymous-only comments by specific IP address (or, heck, a block of IP addresses too), since it would allow people who do want anonymous discussions to have better moderation tools than turning off anonymous comments entirely, or subjecting all anonymous comments to screening.

But once someone has created an account and is using it, this is no longer block-by-IP territory, this is where you log the IP addresses of commenters and ban people by their usernames, and if you suspect someone is creating new usernames to evade a ban, you report them to the Abuse Prevention Team.

[lady_angelina]

Azz, see my comment above.

-1

[silverflight8]

Some legitimate users may be blocked to post comments as a result of this.

Your words.

Re: -1

[charliemc]

Well said.

Agreed.

Re: -1

[alextr98]

If some users cannot comment in MY journal - I will blame myself.

Re: -1

[fiddlingfrog]

And if somebody else bans a troll and accidentally bans their girlfriend when she uses her mobile phone, they can blame you as well.

Re: -1

[alextr98]

I need it, so let me manage bans by IP myself.
I will worry how effective is it.

Re: -1

[midnightmadness]

This comment is null and was not posted as it originates from an IP that was banned from this community on 3/18/2006

-1

[embodyment]

For the reasons this already isn't an option, plus ones outlined above, I say no.