I’ve been a member of some (foreign language) forum.
Recently one very obnoxious guy started abusing this forum.
He would posts a message and then replies to it using a different nikname…
lathe, rinse ,repeat…
The moderator doesn’t care much ,but a lot of regulars do.
How do I go about setting a trap to expose a guy posting under different nicknames.
I’ve been thinking … there may be some sites that register IP address AND allow everybody to read the log. I may then post a link to such site and catch the guy this way
Any other ideas.?
Even if you could get an IP, it might not be useful. I was once a moderator for a huge online forum. Many of the more persistent trolls who pestered us were using anonymizing proxies which made their true identities and IP addresses practically impossible to determine.
I don’t have any intention to look for this person real name,though it would be nice.
I would like to at least be able to prove that all nicknames belong to the same person.
I’m aware of anonymous proxies but I’m pretty sure the guy in question isn’t
Sturan when I said “recently” I meant something like three month.
Besides ,I and a lot of other people are really pissed off to just let it go.
Unfortunately the moderator is of no real help.
The mods are the ones who have the access to the information that can be used (by his ISP and/or annonymizing service) to determine the credentials/user responsible for the post, and the mods are the ones who have the authority to file an abuse complaint if he’s not abiding by the forum’s policies.
You’re not going to get very far without the Mod. You could try and go over the Mod’s head, but simply ignoring the troll is probably going to be your best option. Ignore him, and he’ll go away.
As they say, don’t feed the trolls. If he finds out you’re persuing a little vigilante black ops campaign to determine some aspect of his identity (for lack of a better word), that is the equivalent of feeding him Thanksgiving dinner. He’ll just end up to smacking his lips, belching, staining your tablecloth, and then he’ll snore loudly while sprawled on your couch during the big game.
I inadvertently found out somebody’s IP address via an intellectual dispute that ended up expanding to the relevant Wikipedia entry (the IP address of anyone who edits anoymously is logged and public). But I never actually tried engineering it. Not that I would encourage that kind of abuse of the site of course.
If you are somewhat handy with your computer you can download Apache and run the webserver on your own computer. You’d have access to all the logs you want. The tricky thing would be knowing which visitor was him. Knowing his IP wouldn’t necessarily be that useful anyways since he likely doesn’t have a permanent IP assigned and thus may be using a different one the next day.
You mean set up his own webserver, host a forum on it, and then try and lure the guy over?
If he’s going to go that far, he might as well (privately) invite everyone (except the Mod and the troll) to his new forum and give up the vendetta. Then he can actually be the responsive and responsible calibre of Mod that his current Mod apparently isn’t.
If the mod doesn’t care to learn the technical details of how to track down the troll, you might be able to help…but if the issue is that the mod doesn’t care about the trolling, or isn’t interested in exposing this person, you’re stuck. Even if you present concrete proof, presenting it to an uncaring moderator who isn’t interested in following up is a complete waste of your time and his or hers.
If you don’t already know, ask the mod why he or she isn’t acting. It could even be board policy.
It’s pretty hard to trick, force, or embarrass a moderator into doing your bidding without becoming a troll yourself. You may be stuck with this problem.
The consensus seems to be: leave the troll alone and move on, there isn’t much you can do anyway.
Nope, I still want to fight.
It’s a private forum owned by the moderator (there is nobody else to complain)
She (the mod) is very technically minded but has other projects and full time job ,family…
so the forum got a life of it’s own lately
3.To set up my own web site or start social engineering on Wikipedia is a bit of overkill
The regulars on the forum are divided on whether troll’s messages belong to the same person o not ,so a proof that they ( messages) indeed belong to the same person will suffice.
Request Mod status from the board owner, perhaps noting that you have the time and inclination to take care of the site in her absence, thus saving her the headache.
I second Nanoda’s suggestion. Mod status may be just an email away.
If not, perhaps the owner would give you junior mod status, without a lot of powers, so that you could see what you want but she was still in control of doing anything about it.
Another possibility is to ask her to turn on “visible IP”. This in an option on all board software, where IP appears on every post, and dissuades the situation from arising at all.
