A community wouldn't exist without its members.
Of course, there are also lots of unwanted users out there who have to be dealt with. Learn what do with both the good and bad.
Membership Levels and Custom Titles
You should have interesting and lively member levels to make members strive to reach the next level. You should also give your members custom titles - it's a great way to say thank you for all their support. Try to keep your membership levels related to your board theme. For example, if you have a music board, you could have levels such as "Hopeful Singer" for new members and "American Idol" for senior members. As stated, fun membership levels make people want to be a part of your community and encourage them to actively post to reach that next level.
Assigning and Managing Member Levels
To create member levels, go to your Control Center, click on My Community, click on Member Management, and click on Manage Membership Levels. Here, you see the basic membership levels -- Unregistered User, Registered non-member, Registered User, Moderator, and Administrator -- and options to change those levels, add daily maximums to them, and add new custom levels. When you add a new level you will have several fields to fill in. Use the following table to help you figure out what to put in them.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Level | An arbitrary number from 0-999 allowing you to have up to this many levels (1-998 user definable). With numerical ordering, User Levels can be easily organized and grouped together. |
| Title | This is the description of the equivalent User Level number. The title can be whatever you desire. |
| Powers | Three levels of power: Administrator: Complete, unrestricted access to community management and customization. More info Moderator: Access to topic commands (such as: delete, edit, move and other functions). More info · Standard: Basic user privileges. |
| Type | Can be set to either Automatic or Manual. Automatic adds the user after a specified numbered of posts. Manual requires the admin to take action to add a user to the level. |
| Max Posts | Specifies the maximum number of times a user can post in your community per day |
| Max Views | Specifies the maximum number of times a user can view your community per day |
Assigning & Managing Custom Titles
To assign a member a custom title, go to your Control Center, click on My Community, click on Member Management, and click on the View button. Then find and select the member(s) you want to give a custom title to, go down to the bottom of the page, select Edit Member Levels and Custom Titles, and click Do it. On the page that follows, enter a Custom Title, enter your password, and then save changes. You can use HTML in the Custom Title box.
To get rid of a member''s Custom Title so that the member reverts to having the default membership level title, simply repeat the above and remove the text in the Custom Title box.
Granting Moderator or Administrator Status to a Member
To make a member moderator or administrator, go to your Control Center, click on My Community, click on Member Management, and click on View button. Then find and select the member(s) you want to make moderator or administrator, go down to the bottom of the page, select Edit Member Levels and Custom Titles, and click on Do it. On the following page select "Moderator" or "Administrator" under Member Level, enter your password, and save changes.
NOTE: Choose your moderators and administrators VERY carefully and make sure they use High Security - your community could easily be wrecked if your moderators & administrators aren't trustworthy or if they don't keep their accounts safe!
Troublemakers - Your Options
With any good community comes troublemakers - users who are just there to be disruptive. However, there are things that can be done about them.
- Ban User Name
- You can ban troublemakers from your community by username and they
will no longer be able to post or view with that username or any username
with registered to the same email address. To ban a member by username,
go to your Control Center, click on My Community,
click on Membership Management, click the View button,
select the member(s) you wish to ban, go down to the bottom of the page,
select Ban! from the drop-down menu, and click Do It.
You can ban a user that is not on your member list (in case you know of a global user you don't want frequenting your community) by manually typing in their user name in the Ban By UserName box right on the Membership Management page. Keep in mind this does not automatically ban their email, so if you want to a ban someone who has posted on your community, the way mentioned above is recommended. - Ban Email
- Like with user names, you can manually ban an email in the Ban By Email box right on the Member Management page. All user names using a banned email address will be blocked from viewing or posting at your community under those email addresses.
- Ban IP
- Be very careful when using the Ban by IP feature, as many
who have dial-up Internet Service Providers share their IP addresses
with other users, so you may end up banning innocent users. Also, there
are ways that troublemakers can hide their actual IP address so they
could possibly get around the ban. Most users won't be able to do this
though, so Ban by IP is quite effective if used properly. Note:
This is the only way to ban unregistered users.
To ban a user by IP address, enter the IP address you wish to ban (to ban ranges, use * - i.e. 30.32.30.*) in the Ban by IP Address box right on the Member Management page. To find out all the IP addresses that a user that has posted on your board has used in the past, click on View Banned IPs, and click on Look up IPs by user name.
Note: Deleting a member from the user list does not unban the member. You can delete a troublemaker's local account by deleting that account from your membership list after banning it.
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