Once upon a time this forum displayed the IP address. I removed it for privacy and security reasons and I'm not sure that making that information available to the public is good from that point of view. I do see the functionality you are looking for, though.

Perhaps an alternative would be to offer the possibility of blocking: If there's a message from someone you don't want to see perhaps there could be a "Block" button which would block the IP address in question without actually showing you or the public what the IP address is. The forum knows the IP address and could just ask you "Do you want to block Class C or Class B?" I.e., if the address is 1.2.3.4 you'd have to indicate whether to block 1.2.3.* or 1.2.*., but the forum wouldn't actually tell you the IP addresses it was blocking.

Or, perhaps, the forum could show 1.2.3.X and just hide the last octet of the IP address?

One thing that I think might be useful is for the forum to indicate the COUNTRY from which the post was written. That could be useful without being to invasive privacy-wise.

More ideas are welcome.

Regards,
Craig Steiner
8052.com Webmaster