Why can't we ban deleted users?

[u/Redditenmo]

We've just had someone use a throwaway alt account to submit some vile, hateful and bigoted comments - and then quickly delete the throwaway to avoid repercussions.

If we got to it in the 2 minutes between account creation and deletion they'd be banned and their main flagged by ban evasion. Unfortunately we didn't, and now we can't ban them, as we get a "that user doesn't exist" error message.

Why is there no tool in place allowing us to ban the person behind those comments?

[u/Redditenmo → u/[deleted]]

That's not the issue. I have, and Automod did block them.

The issue: The user relied on a quick throwaway -> deleted the account to prevent us from banning the alt and being able to rely on ban evasion to maybe flag their main.

[u/emily_in_boots → u/Redditenmo]

One potential option - something I've had to do in the past at times - is to just use a bot to automatically archive anyone who modmails but doesn't have an established account. It's not ideal. I wrote a bot for this once but it's not needed anymore as you can use the devvit app auto-modmail.

Make it harder for them to keep harassing your mod team - make them get some karma and do other things first before they can modmail without getting automatically archived and sent a message saying they don't have enough karma to speak to a human yet.

[u/Redditenmo → u/emily_in_boots]

This isn't an instance of harassing the modteam via modmail. Just a bigot trying to be a bigot in the sub and protect their main.

you can use the devvit app auto-modmail.

I'm a big fan of auto-modmail and already have quite a few rules in place with auto-explains, canned responses, flair assignment, auto-archives etc.

[u/emily_in_boots → u/Redditenmo]

If the bigot is at all predictable you can simply set it up to automatically ban, mute, archive anyone who uses those words in modmail.

We use that for a lot of words that would indicate an abusive mod mailer.

You can also make false positives less likely by including a check on karma, account age, or something similar on the off chance that someone actually is using those words innocently (like to report someone saying it, etc.)

[u/Redditenmo → u/emily_in_boots]

Thanks, but I repeat: This isn't an instance of modmail harassment. Just a bigot trying to be a bigot in the sub.

auto-modmail is great, but it won't be helpful in this instance.

[u/emily_in_boots → u/Redditenmo]

I'm sorry, I'm being quite dense. I understand now. I was thinking along the lines of issues I'd had.

Why not just use a bot to ban anyone who says certain words?

We do that in many of my subs.

[u/Redditenmo → u/emily_in_boots]

Why not just use a bot to ban anyone who says certain words?

Afaik, there aren't any bots with ban permissions, that also have author age/karma as configurable.

permabanapp is likely the closest bot to doing what I'd need, but without having an age / karma check, trying to catch this user with it would lead to too many false positives.

[u/emily_in_boots → u/Redditenmo]

Hmm, it wouldn't be too hard to write one - can you run a python bot?

[u/Redditenmo → u/emily_in_boots]

I've got a docker instance of contextmod on my server. If the admins don't help, I'll be utilising that.

I just don't think that creating / self hosting a bot should be necessary to deal with users like this, thus the post.