Looking For Forum Advice For My Own Forum Please?

[zebedee3000]

Hi everyone,

I hope you won't mind me asking for some forum advice please?

I have a website with a forum which was only launched 6 weeks ago but I am having a lot of trouble with spam messages, which i guess was to be expected. The site has nothing to do with IM.

I have changed the registration process now to allow admin to activate any new users which has helped not having the spam posted, but I am still getting around 30 - 40 registrations a day mostly from Russia. I am deleting these one by one which is time consuming, but does anyone know how I can block these or block Russia in general please? I have managed to block all Russian based email addresses, but of course, they are now using Gmail accounts.

Any technical advice would be good please and also does anyone else have problems like this with their own forums?

I think there is probably not a lot I can do and as the forum is new, there isn't enough users yet to have moderators monitoring the posts.

Many thanks in advance.

Simon

[MemberWing]

What forum software do you use?
I am pretty sure double opt-in and manual approval of account by admin would help.

I'd be interested to follow this thread

[zebedee3000]

Hi, I'm using phpBB forum software which was set up by my web developer. I am doing manual approvals, but this is getting very annoying deleting up to 40 spam reg's a day. I can block individual IP addresses which is also time consuming, but there doesn't seem to be an overal block on Russia.

Sneeky devils!

[MemberWing]

do you use captcha?

I wonder how vBulletin people are dealing with this.

[Marty S]

Originally Posted by zebedee3000

Hi, I'm using phpBB forum software which was set up by my web developer. I am doing manual approvals, but this is getting very annoying deleting up to 40 spam reg's a day. I can block individual IP addresses which is also time consuming, but there doesn't seem to be an overal block on Russia.

I am doing this as well. I just check once or twice a day and scout for legitimate sign-ups, then ban all other IPs. I had a programmer add a function for this where it just takes a radio-button click to do it.

[DougBarger]

Hi Simon,

Last year I had experienced the same problem with the spam bots coming on
and it was really out of control.

I located, downloaded and applied the "anti-spam verification" mod and it stopped

it dead in its tracks immediately and there hasn't been a single case since.

Basically, it's a modification you can upload into your forum app/software

that requires new members to click an activation link in their email before

activating their membership and granting the ability to post.

That was with a smf forum, but since you have phpBB, you'll need to use

the new mod they have developed which gives you the same results

but requires an authorization code to be entered instead of a verification link to be clicked.

Here's your direct link to get the mod that will take care of it for you

and if you need any support for it, it's at this link too:

Phpbbantispam.com :: Index

That should solve the problem for you completely Simon and make your life a little easier. :-)

Doug

[MemberWing]

Yes that would do.
Spam is only efficient if spammer is able to automate the whole process.
Adding manual hurdles (captcha, double-optins email verification, link clicking or code entering) will make it terribly inefficient for spammers so they'll be gone for easier targets.

Gleb

[zebedee3000]

Wow, many thanks for all of your advice and particulalry DougBarger. I will definately look at the anti spam verification add on and see if I can get that working. It's a shame that the s/w providers aren't including this as standard nowadays considering the amount of spam that is flying around.

I'll report back soon and let you know how I get on.

So, many thanks again to everyone who took the trouble to leave a message.

take care

Simon

[zebedee3000]

Oh and just to say that I do have a capthca code on my forum so these spammers are obviously registering manually.

[stevenh512]

Originally Posted by zebedee3000

Oh and just to say that I do have a capthca code on my forum so these spammers are obviously registering manually.

Not necessarily. Without going into details, there are ways to beat the captcha in software without requiring anyone to type anything in manually. If anyone's ever looked into the "Myspace Friend Adder" programs that are floating around out there, you'll know a few of them can do it.