Grateful Dead Music Forum

We need to stop this nonsense - it's getting much worse. The signup process should include a better way of weeding them out. Is anything being done now? Suggestions?

mk

re-captcha is just about the only way to limit (note: not eliminate) this.

It is annoying, but impossible to end. I know I hate having to sign in 3 times, but I will for the good of the community.

How about a quiz? Yes, anything can be googled, however, that takes time.

mk

I have been keeping an eye on it, I think we have outsourced humans setting up the registration, then a bot doing the spam.

phpbb wrote:I have been keeping an eye on it, I think we have outsourced humans setting up the registration, then a bot doing the spam.

Hmmmm, if so is there any way to, say, make their first score of posts deletable by anyone with over 1000 posts?

What if the first 10 posts had to pass through an admin. Hell you could probably make it the first 3 posts or even just the first. If you want to begin posting to the board your post needs to be approved. Once you've proven yourself to be a valid participant...you're on your own. That's more admin work but if you kept the number down low...it might not add too much to your already full plate. ????

Disable hyperlinks in the signature until a user has a certain number of posts...

ReCaptcha is not the default for PHPBB3, although the code has been changed as of 3.0.5 to allow for changing from the default to ReCaptcha. There is also an Anti-Bot Q&A mod available for 3.x.

Another effective mod appears to be SpamWords, it allows you to flag words and phrases to be blacklisted and posts that contain them are rejected.

Anti-Spam ACP Mod includes the SpamWords feature as well as a a couple other unique features for suspicious user logging and banning.

Last change would be to sanitize the footer code to remove all references to phpBB, since most spammers are using search engines to target sites running phpBB.

RiverRat wrote:Disable hyperlinks in the signature until a user has a certain number of posts...

ReCaptcha is not the default for PHPBB3, although the code has been changed as of 3.0.5 to allow for changing from the default to ReCaptcha. There is also an Anti-Bot Q&A mod available for 3.x.

Another effective mod appears to be SpamWords, it allows you to flag words and phrases to be blacklisted and posts that contain them are rejected.

Anti-Spam ACP Mod includes the SpamWords feature as well as a a couple other unique features for suspicious user logging and banning.

Last change would be to sanitize the footer code to remove all references to phpBB, since most spammers are using search engines to target sites running phpBB.

I have tried recaptcha in the past, it did not stop the registrations, which is why I think it's a human doing it.

I did have a "newly registered user" created, which limited people's abilities for the first few posts. I think I turned it off after new people kept complaining that they couldn't do anything. I will revisit that.

Good idea on the Spam stuff, I found a couple last night. I am going to try and add one that checks ip's and emails from known spammers during registration.

Good idea to remove the phpbb reference.

What about a "flag and hide" plug in? so after flagged the post is hidden for admin evaluation? Thought I saw this elsewhere?!

strumminsix wrote:What about a "flag and hide" plug in? so after flagged the post is hidden for admin evaluation? Thought I saw this elsewhere?!

Actually, there is a feature called Post Queuing that is available from Version 3.0.3 to the current version. Admins set a minimum post threshold and any user with a post count lower than that has their post queued for Mod/Admin approval. Once the post count threshold is reach, posting happens the usual way without needed approval. The queued posts are not see on the forums and don't cound towards the users post count until approved.

Check compatibility with any anti-spam mods if you're running higher than 3.0.6, since the captcha/registration code has been moved from the core to a separate API and this breaks older Mods.

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=1437125

Also worth looking at is the new Spam Hammer Mod: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopi ... &t=2127067

This one appears to be a swiss army knife of anti-spam stuff!

Hey there,this is Kenjifujima,glad to join this forum and glad to meet you here,I look forward to getting some inspiration and getting to know all of you.

Kenjifujima wrote:Hey there,this is Kenjifujima,glad to join this forum and glad to meet you here,I look forward to getting some inspiration and getting to know all of you.

And I look forward to smashing you flat like the slimy bugs you are!

mkaufman wrote:Is anything being done now?

My two day tally:

475 active user accounts deleted
25 inactive user accounts deleted
75 posts deleted

To put that into perspective, it was 15% of the active accounts in the database. I deleted 1 spam account for every 7 registered.

RiverRat wrote:

mkaufman wrote:Is anything being done now?

My two day tally:

475 active user accounts deleted
25 inactive user accounts deleted
75 posts deleted

To put that into perspective, it was 15% of the active accounts in the database. I deleted 1 spam account for every 7 registered.

Holy Crap! There's a lot of bored SOBs out there who've got nothing better to do than spam this site. I'd like to turn my mile-wide redneck streak loose on them and give 'em a good ole Southwestern Virginia "what-for" as they say around here