Group bans: an overview

On Tuesday June 17th, Linden Lab released the Group Ban project viewer (version 3.7.8.290887) which, as the name suggests, allows group owners (and those they nominate by role) to ban individuals from their group.

Group bans, which are enforced server-side, like parcel and estate bans, are intended to remove troublemakers from a group / prevent them from joining the group. This article will hopefully provide an overview of the group ban tools within the project viewer (and which will eventually progress to the release viewer).

The following general points with group bans should be noted:

• By default, only a group’s Owners role has the Manage Ban List ability for banning other avatars from a group /removing avatars from the ban list
• The ability can be granted to other roles, if required
• Roles which are granted this ability are also granted the Eject Members from this Group and Remove Members from Roles abilities
• The ban list for a group can store a maximum of 500 entries. When this limit is reached, some avatars must be removed before others can be added
• Group Owners cannot be banned from a group (just as they cannot be ejected)
• When a group member is banned from the group, they are automatically ejected and will receive the usual ejection notification, but will not receive any notice that they have also been banned
• A user who is banned from a group cannot join it either directly or through an invitation
• If a group member is banned while using group chat, they may be able to continue using it until they close the group chat window (this problem also exists when ejecting someone from a group when they have the group chat window open)
• Any attempt to invite one or more banned avatars into a group, whether individually or as a part of a list, will generate the message:  Some residents have not been sent an invite due to being banned from the group.

The viewer itself includes the necessary options to allow a group owner (and those they nominate by role) to:

• Add or remove avatars from the group ban list
• View the group ban list
• Add the ability to ban avatars from a group to any other roles within the group, if required.

Applying Group Bans

Avatars can be banned from a group in one of two ways:

• By selecting them in the group members list if they are already a member of the group
• By using the Group Ban Picker to ban one or more avatars from a group, whether or not they are already members.

Banning via the Members List

• Display your groups list (CTRL-SHIFT-G), select the required group and open its profile
• Click on Roles & Members to open it, and then click on the Members tab
• Locate the first avatar you wish to ban and left-click on their name
• If there is more than one avatar you wish to ban, press CTRL and left-click on each of the remaining names
• Click on the Ban Member(s) button
• The highlighted avatars will be ejected and banned from the group, and you should see the normal confirmatory notification(s) that they have been ejected.

To confirm the selected individuals have been ejected and banned, click the right scroll buttons at the top of the panel to scroll / jump to the Banned Residents tab. This should display the name of all avatars banned from the group. If the name(s) of the avatar(s) just banned do not appear to be listed, wait a minute or two and click the refresh button in the lower left corner of the panel.

 Banning via the Banned Residents List

This method can be used to ban people who are already a member of the group and / or pro-actively prevent people from joining a group.

• Display your groups list (CTRL-SHIFT-G), select the required group and open its profile
• Click on Roles & Members to open it, and then use the arrow buttons to scroll to the Banned Residents tab
• Click on the Ban Resident(s) button
• The Group Ban People Picker is displayed. Click on the Open Resident Chooser button within it
• The Chose Resident panel is displayed. Use the search option to enter all or part of the name of the avatar you wish to ban. A list of matching names is displayed

• Left-click on the name you wish to ban and click the Select add it to the Group Ban Picker
• Use the Choose Resident panel to add further names to the Group Ban Picker, if required
• Close the Choose Resident panel when done
• Highlight the list of names in the Group Ban Picker and click the Ban Residents button
• The selected avatars will be banned from the group and added to the ban list. If any are already members of the group, they will be ejected and the usual group eject notifications sent.

Removing Someone from a Group’s Ban List

• Display your groups list (CTRL-SHIFT-G), select the required group and open its profile
• Click on Roles & Members to open it, and then use the arrow buttons to scroll to the Banned Residents tab
• Highlight the avatar name you wish to unban (or use CTRL left-click to select more than one)
• Click the Remove Bans button.

Granting Group Ban Capabilities to other Group Roles

As noted towards the top of this article, only the group Owner role has the ban ability by default. However, as with all group abilities, it can be assigned to other roles, if required (e.g. the group Officer role).

The ability is called Manage Ban List, and it can be added to any role just like any other group ability.

However, when assigning the ability to a role, keep in mind that the assigned role will also be granted also granted the Eject Members from this Group and Remove Members from Roles abilities. A pop-up notification reminding you of this will be displayed when assigning the ability to another role.

Both the Eject Members and the Remove Members abilities will be checked in the group panel and greyed out (so they cannot be disabled) until such time as the Manage Ban List ability is removed from the role (which will also automatically remove the Eject Members and Remove Members abilities from the role).

End Notes

Do remember the group ban viewer is a project viewer, and as such, may display some odd behaviour when handling group bans. If you do note any issues which can be reproduced, please file a bug report on it.

Related Links

• Group Ban project viewer download and release notes