Shadow Ban

CyberGene

A shadow-banned user replied to one of my posts (I'm an admin and a mod) and the post didn't get shadow hidden. Is that a bug or a feature?

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene probably a bug, there's nothing special for replies or for hard-coded groups. Do you have more information that could help reproduce?

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann I checked the logs, couldn’t see anything. Basically, I have a user who is shadow-banned until 2033. He posts from time to time but all his posts are shadow-hidden as expected. BTW, he always replies to other posts (no quote, just reply). However, today I was surprised to discover that he had replied to an old post of mine and his reply was not shadow-hidden. The only possible difference is I’m an admin and a mod (and thus have the permissions to see shadow-hidden content). I checked with a logged-off browser and his post is publicly visible and was on top. Basically, a regular post.

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann seems the problem is not related to “replying to an admin”. The same shadow banned user has just replied to a regular user and his post was not shadow hidden. However he has had other similar posts in between that were shadow hidden correctly.

So, the extension has had two misses (out of 20-30 correctly hidden posts for that user) but I don’t see any errors in the logs.

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene can you share your php flarum info output so I can see which extensions are in use ? There could be some sort of conflict with another extension.

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann

Flarum core: 1.8.5
PHP version: 8.2.15
MySQL version: 5.7.44-48-log
Loaded extensions: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, sqlite3, zlib, bcmath, bz2, calendar, ctype, curl, dba, dom, enchant, hash, fileinfo, filter, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, json, iconv, SPL, intl, session, mbstring, standard, mysqlnd, pcntl, exif, mysqli, PDO, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, pspell, random, readline, Reflection, imap, shmop, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, sodium, sysvmsg, sysvsem, tidy, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, memcached, Zend OPcache
+-------------------------------------------+----------+--------+
| Flarum Extensions                         |          |        |
+-------------------------------------------+----------+--------+
| ID                                        | Version  | Commit |
+-------------------------------------------+----------+--------+
| flarum-flags                              | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-approval                           | v1.8.1   |        |
| flarum-tags                               | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-suspend                            | v1.8.1   |        |
| flarum-bbcode                             | v1.8.0   |        |
| fof-pages                                 | 1.0.8    |        |
| fof-byobu                                 | 1.3.5    |        |
| flarum-mentions                           | v1.8.3   |        |
| flarum-subscriptions                      | v1.8.0   |        |
| afrux-forum-widgets-core                  | v0.1.7   |        |
| flamarkt-backoffice                       | 0.1.3    |        |
| flarum-markdown                           | v1.8.0   |        |
| zerosonesfun-inline-audio                 | 3.0      |        |
| v17development-seo                        | v1.8.0   |        |
| the-turk-flamoji                          | 1.0.4    |        |
| sycho-move-posts                          | v0.1.7   |        |
| rob006-last-post-avatar                   | 1.2.4    |        |
| kilowhat-rich-embeds                      | 1.3.1    |        |
| fof-user-directory                        | 1.3.3    |        |
| fof-user-bio                              | 1.3.2    |        |
| fof-upload                                | 1.5.4    |        |
| fof-sitemap                               | 2.2.1    |        |
| fof-polls                                 | 2.1.2    |        |
| fof-nightmode                             | 1.5.3    |        |
| fof-merge-discussions                     | 1.4.1    |        |
| fof-links                                 | 1.2.2    |        |
| fof-ignore-users                          | 1.2.1    |        |
| fof-forum-statistics-widget               | 1.2.1    |        |
| fof-formatting                            | 1.0.3    |        |
| fof-follow-tags                           | 1.2.2    |        |
| fof-ban-ips                               | 1.1.1    |        |
| fof-anti-spam                             | 1.1.2    |        |
| flarum-sticky                             | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-statistics                         | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-pusher                             | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-nicknames                          | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-lock                               | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-likes                              | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-lang-english                       | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-emoji                              | v1.8.0   |        |
| flarum-ai-toolkit                         | dev-main |        |
| ekumanov-online-users-widget              | v1.0.7   |        |
| davwheat-session-keepalive                | 1.1.0    |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-sudo-mode                 | 1.1.0    |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-shadow-ban                | 1.1.0    |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-selective-mediaembed      | 1.0.1    |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-post-stream-search        | 1.1.0    |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-advanced-search-highlight | 1.0.2    |        |
| blomstra-turnstile                        | 0.1.4    |        |
| blomstra-spam-prevention                  | 1.5.0    |        |
| blomstra-mark-unread                      | 0.2.0    |        |
| blomstra-database-queue                   | 1.1.0    |        |
| askvortsov-rich-text                      | v2.1.7   |        |
| askvortsov-pwa                            | v3.3.3   |        |
| askvortsov-markdown-tables                | v1.2.1   |        |
+-------------------------------------------+----------+--------+

Queue driver: database
Session driver: file
Scheduler status: Active
Mail driver: smtp

CyberGene

@clarkwinkelmann the extension is missing half of the posts of a shadow banned user. What other kind of extension might be conflicting with this one? Listening for the same event perhaps?

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene that's very curious.

Is this happening with replies to existing discussions, or also new discussions?

Could you check the shadow_hidden_at column in the posts table in the database for some of the posts that should be hidden? Is the value NULL or is there a date? If the value is a date, then it's a conflict specifically within the private post API of Flarum. But if it's NULL something is preventing my extension from reading the new posts on their creation.

I assume you don't see the "shadow hidden" badge on the impacted posts? (as a moderator)

Have you also verified whether the content is hidden or not from a non-moderator account or guest?

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann it just happened again, so before shadow hiding his new post manually, I checked the DB and shadow_hidden_at for that post is NULL.

And yes, that post is publicly visible, not just to me as admin/mod. It’s a reply in an existing discussion. We suspect it’s a bot because he always replies to old discussions that are months/years old, he replies to a particular post mentioning the corresponding user and just rephrases what’s in that post, maybe an AI bot or something. I’m not even sure why would one do that and I’ll probably just fully ban him but nevertheless the shadow ban used to work for a few months with this user but not anymore.

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene how long did you suspend the user for? Can you check the shadow_banned_until value column in the database for that particular user? I'm really not sure what could be going on...

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann how long did you suspend the user for? Can you check the shadow_banned_until value column in the database for that particular user? I'm really not sure what could be going on...

He was banned for 10 years initially and it used to work. Then it started acting strange and I thought it might have to do something with the long period, so I set it to one month and the actual record in the table is correct 2024-03-13 11:20:00.

Well, if you don't know what it is, don't bother, probably an incompatibility with some other extension, not critical, I am wondering if I need this extension at all, because I prefer having clarity with users: if they are spammers, they are hard-banned, not shadow-banned. Maybe the entire concept of shadow-banning is not what I need in my case.

What will happen if I remove the extension? Will it affect the already shadow-banned posts? Also, if I first remove this extension, and then mark the user as a spammer, will the spam extension also delete the shadow-banned posts, or I should first mark as spammer and then remove the extension?

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene I haven't really tested but since it used the Flarum private API, the shadow hidden content should disappear from view forever when you disable the extension. It will still be in the database but Flarum will not show it.

crazysvn

seems the privilege of shadow hide discussions can't be set under different tags?

clarkwinkelmann

crazysvn I don't remember whether that permission was tag-scopable or not. If you don't see the option, it probably isn't.

The shadow features are very powerful. When I designed the extension I imagined the same users that have the shadow ban ability should be able to apply or remove the shadow hide on posts of the users they control, which are all users and therefore in all tags.

If you're only using the shadow hide feature and not the ban feature, I see there could be a use for tag-scoped permissions, but I have not planned to change this at the moment.

crazysvn

clarkwinkelmann If you're only using the shadow hide feature and not the ban feature, I see there could be a use for tag-scoped permissions

yea, that is exact the feature I'm looking for. I hope someday you get some time to make this feature out. thanks for your great extension :-D

SKevo

There currently seems to be an incompatibility with Blomstra's GDPR extension:

flarum.ERROR: TypeError: Blomstra\Gdpr\Access\UserPolicy::can(): Argument #3 ($user) must be of type Flarum\User\User, string given in /data/host/skeleton/vendor/blomstra/gdpr/src/Access/UserPolicy.php:29
Stack trace:
#0 [internal function]: Blomstra\Gdpr\Access\UserPolicy->can()
#1 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/flarum/core/src/User/Access/AbstractPolicy.php(59): call_user_func_array()
#2 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/flarum/core/src/User/Access/Gate.php(78): Flarum\User\Access\AbstractPolicy->checkAbility()
#3 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/flarum/core/src/User/User.php(790): Flarum\User\Access\Gate->allows()
#4 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/clarkwinkelmann/flarum-ext-shadow-ban/src/Scope/ViewUser.php(21): Flarum\User\User->can()
#5 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/flarum/core/src/Foundation/ContainerUtil.php(30): ClarkWinkelmann\ShadowBan\Scope\ViewUser->__invoke()
#6 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/flarum/core/src/Database/ScopeVisibilityTrait.php(48): Flarum\Foundation\ContainerUtil::Flarum\Foundation\{closure}()
#7 /data/host/skeleton/vendor/illuminate/database/Eloquent/Model.php(1475): Flarum\User\User->scopeWhereVisibleTo()

clarkwinkelmann

SKevo the problem seems to lie within GDPR. I created a GitHub issue flarum/gdpr42

fakruzaruret

How can I hide user who I banned, from guest users that are not log in? I ban user with shadow ban and other ban extension but everyone can see the user's profile and nickname still.

clarkwinkelmann

fakruzaruret where do visitor see the banned user profile if their posts/discussions are hidden?

The extension doesn't prevent accessing the profile page, it's a bit too complicated. But nobody should find the profile page if the user doesn't appear anywhere on the forum to begin with.

seppitm

Hey, im using your plugin. First of all, i want to thank you for this, its really really useful!
I have a question: i shadowbanned a user, all of his new fiscussions are hidden now, but hos replys are displayed normally, is that intendet?

clarkwinkelmann

seppitm it's supposed to apply to replies as well. Can you share your php flarum info output so we can see your list of extensions?

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