I've made another change to his ID in the database -- I don't have the code to hand, but it should make a difference and log him out.

So what happened earlier when we weren't able to stop Michael from posting? I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that only ita can "instantly" deactivate someone. 'Cause, what if she's not around? Can we put a high priority on fixing the problem?

And these questions are really directed at ita, because she coded it, so I probably shouldn't refer to her in the third person...

t edit Would it work to have a button on the edituser page that logged out a specific user?

We use HostRocket. We've had far less downtime than WX, or TT, for that matter.

Just to note, the "downtime" on WX and TT were failures of the software and/or database back end of the sites.

That has never happened here, except for, literally a second or two during which ita was uploading a new version of an essential file.

What we have had here, although it hasn't been for a while, touch wood, is communication outages, in which our server was not connected to the internet for some reason.

That, conversely, never happened on WX/TT to my knowledge.

I can't remember if we had those outages explained -- were they Hostrocket's fault or was there some backbone/pipe/major issue?

Jon, I can't instantly deactivate a poster. The tweak I tried didn't work.

That's going to have to be a modification.

John -- I know I've been unable to get to pre-Phoenix Buffistas at least once because of a connectivity issue on their end. Which I was sure of because it turned out another discussion board I frequented was hosted by the same people.

To be honest, I haven't paid much attention.

For personal use, I'd say Hostrocket is just fine. For an application like this which gets almost 24/7 use, you want to do what you consider reasonable in the way of increasing redundant hardware and connectivity, which takes you out of most standard hosting packages.

That's going to have to be a modification.

Does my idea of having a "logout" button on the edituser page make sense?

It should be unnecessary. Deactivating should log out the user. I just have to work out how to end someone else's session from the server side.

We can't just delete users?

I mean, we want to keep, but deactivate, people who're being shunned, but people who try to register as "FUCKERS!!!" -- if ita's not around, what happens?

Deactivating should log out the user.

Yep. That makes a lot more sense.

t edit or what John said. There's no reason to keep certain people on the database so why not just delete them?

You do to FUCKERS!!!!! exactly what I did to FUCKERS!!!!! -- deactivate it.

Deletion risks breaking referential integrity. There are two ways around that -- moving all posts from a deleted user to "DELETED USER" (which I don't like), or not allowing deletion of posters who've actually posted. Which is fine, but who but us admins knows about the deactivated never-posted users?

Also -- once a user is deleted, that e-mail address can be used to register again. And that user name.

ita's right again. I think. I should just go to bed.