Occasionally, a user in your Higher Logic Vanilla (Vanilla) community may break your code of conduct or community rules to such a degree that a ban is necessary to prevent them from participating any further in your community.
In this article, you'll learn how to ban users from their profiles and the Dashboard.
Before we begin...
If you'd like to learn about other, less drastic measures you can take to curb undesirable behaviour, check out the Additional resources section at the bottom of this article.
Required permission
Users must belong to a Role with the Garden > Moderation > Manage permission to ban a user. This is generally reserved for Admins and Moderators.
To learn how to access and manage your Roles and their permissions, check out the article below.
Ban a user
You can ban users in two places:
- User profile
- Admin Dashboard
Let's learn how to ban users from both locations.
📝 NOTE: Banning a user from their profile provides two additional levels of functionality: you can indicate why you're banning them and choose to delete their content. You cannot perform these actions when banning via the Dashboard.
Ban via profile
1. Navigate to the user's profile.
2. Click the actions dropdown, followed by Ban.
3. In the dialog:
- Indicate why you're banning the user (spam, abusive behavior, or select Other to provide a custom reason in the text field).
- Check the box if you'd like to also delete the user's contributed content.
- Click Ban to finalize the action.
Ban via Dashboard
📝 NOTE: As indicated earlier, you cannot indicate why you're banning a user or delete their content when banning via the Dashboard. If you'd like to employ either of these actions, ban the user from their profile.
1. Access the Dashboard.
2. Navigate to Moderation > Site > Users.
3. Locate the user in the list and click the pencil icon.
4. In the dialog, in the Role section, check the Banned box.
5. Click Save to immediately ban the user.
Effects of banning users
When a user is banned, they can no longer log in and participate in your community. In addition:
- Their entry on the Manage Users page (Moderation > Site > Users) indicates their being banned.
- Their profile displays the following indicators.
📝 NOTE: If the Private Profile setting is enabled, the user's profile becomes inaccessible.
Whether a banned user can continue to access the site is dependent on whether it is a:
- Private site - banned users cannot access the site.
- Public site - banned users still have Guest access (i.e., view only).
Unban a user
It's possible you may want or need to unban a user you've banned so they can once again participate in your community.
To unban a user, simply follow the steps outlined in the Ban a user section above. The process is identical, except you'll be "undoing" the ban.
Private Profiles
Private Profiles is an option to hide the profiles of banned users. When enabled, banned users' profiles are viewable by authorized users only.
To enable Private Profiles:
1. Click the settings icon above the list of ban rules.
2. Slide the toggle to the right to enable the option.
3. Click Save.
📝 NOTE: To disable this option, repeat the above steps but slide the toggle to the left.
Additional resources
Check out the articles below to learn about other, less drastic measures you can take to curb undesirable behaviour.
