How Do I Mass Delete Users?

[TheBigK]

My XF suddenly got spammed and I see over 200 spam registrations on the site. I've been looking at a way to mass delete these users and can't seem to find any!

Also, I was looking at a way to 'Delete Posts As Spam' type feature in XF - which is very handy in deleting spam and also banning the spammer.

Can someone help?

 

[Dean]

I would assume that you know they are spammers either for what they have done, or indications in their account - either way you should be able to set up the spam cleaner so that is available in those locations.

I've no idea how you would identify a spammer without viewing either their content or profile, without possibly deleting non-spammers that may get caught up in the cleanup.

 

[Jake Bunce]

This video demonstrates the spam cleaner:

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/cleaning-up-spam.2297/

There is no feature to mass prune user accounts. But as Dean said, there is likely no common criteria you could use to identify spammers for use in a mass pruning system.

With the spam cleaner you can quickly deal with an individual account and all of its posts once it has revealed itself to be a spam account.

In addition, you should setup Q&A for registration. That will block almost all spam registrations (except those being registered by humans):

Admin CP -> Tools -> Question and Answer

 

[glorify]

My XF suddenly got spammed and I see over 200 spam registrations on the site.

That could be a problem...

 

[TheBigK]

Thanks for your responses, friends. The thing is, forum was unattended for some time and spammers were able to create over 200 accounts and post all xxx pics all over. I removed their individual posts but could not find a way to ban them at the time of removing their posts. Now I've a clean forum but the accounts are still there. My job would have been easier, if there were checkboxes next to the account names when I list all the users.

I know for sure that the accounts I'll be deleting are spam accounts. I'll go through the cleaming up spam video now.

 

[boatswife]

My job would have been easier, if there were checkboxes next to the account names when I list all the users.

Totally agree........I'm really hoping to see this added at some point. There are lots of forums that routinely prune members, mine being one of them, and it pains me to know that I have to do this individually.

 

[Paul B]

I removed their individual posts but could not find a way to ban them at the time of removing their posts.

Didn't you use the Spam Cleaner?
That's a one click operation to delete their content and ban them.

This may help: http://xenforo.com/help/spam/

 

[MYstIC G]

Thanks for your responses, friends. The thing is, forum was unattended for some time and spammers were able to create over 200 accounts and post all xxx pics all over. I removed their individual posts but could not find a way to ban them at the time of removing their posts. Now I've a clean forum but the accounts are still there. My job would have been easier, if there were checkboxes next to the account names when I list all the users.

I know for sure that the accounts I'll be deleting are spam accounts. I'll go through the cleaming up spam video now.

Didn't you use the Spam Cleaner?
That's a one click operation to delete their content and ban them.

This may help: http://xenforo.com/help/spam/

Except they're still all there in the member list even if you ban people. This still needs serious work.

 

[Paul B]

That's as designed.

The developers made a conscious decision to specifically not identify banned users.

 

[MYstIC G]

Then it's not the best design choice as you get that same result if you use the spam cleaner and Spambots != Users.

 

[HannahP]

as Dean said, there is likely no common criteria you could use to identify spammers for use in a mass pruning system.

Of course there is. I'm sure I'm not the only one to deal with 75 or 100 accounts set up on email addresses all using the same throw-away domain name. Email addresses are an excellent indication of probable spammers in a lot of ways (how many legit .info email addresses are in your database?). Anyone who has been a forum admin for any amount of time should be able to see many obvious clues in username/email address combinations.

I agree with those who consider this aspect of XF lacking, as it clearly is. Some people might like to manage their forums "in the dark" as it were ("Hey, who cares if half my users are spammers - they haven't spammed yet!" Uh, whoopee?), I'm not one of them. I don't want to compare XF to that other software, but that other software has superior back-end user management. I assume, and hold out hope, that this will improve here over time.

 

[Jake Bunce]

Email addresses are an excellent indication of probable spammers in a lot of ways

That's true.

If there was a user pruning feature you could run a query to move all users with a particular email domain into the same usergroup and then prune by group.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

I would like the option to prune all users with zero post who have not visited the forum is X days/months.
Any chance there is a mod for this or a SQL query I could run?

Thanks
-Brandon

 

[Jake Bunce]

Any chance there is a mod for this or a SQL query I could run?

No query unfortunately. There are user relations throughout the database so this can't be done with a simple query. An addon is required, and I don't know of any.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

No query unfortunately. There are user relations throughout the database so this can't be done with a simple query. An addon is required, and I don't know of any.

thanks for clearing that up, hope someone makes a plugin for this

 

[Brandon Sheley]

Has there been an update to a "prune users with no post and hasn't visited in x months" yet?

thx

 

[Alien]

Has there been an update to a "prune users with no post and hasn't visited in x months" yet?

I need this too!

 

[ragtek]

I need this too!

interested in an add-on?

 

[Alien]

Sure, though the one I had seen hadn't been updated in over a year and there were reports of it not working now...

Is this a NEW add-on?

 

[Digital Doctor]

Have people made the relevant requests to improve spam management ?
What Requests would help this situation ?

I don't think anyone wants permanently banned members to show up in the members list.

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/banned-users-still-in-members-list.11898/