How do forum owners combat spam?

by bravo75

Posted: 13 years ago 16 replies

OFF TOPIC

I had a forum and got rid of it last week. The amount of spam that was coming through was just to much for me to handle on my own. I have better things to do than deleting spam posts all day. How do the WF guys handle this? Do they have an army of mods?

Bill Farnham 13 years ago

There's an army of regulars who report threads here every time they visit the forum.

And then there's Les and Paul and a host of others who carry bigger sticks than the rest of us do.

Without those two ingredients things would be way different here.

(Waiting for the Les Paul jokes...)
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KimW 13 years ago

I don't think it would be as much fun with Less Paul!
<insert bad pun groan here>
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- Paul Myers 13 years ago
  
  Kim,
  
  I don't think it would be as much fun with Less Paul!
  
  Ouch.
  
  As far as that goes, I suspect it would depend a great deal on who you asked.
  
  Paul
  
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  .
  Stop by Paul's Pub - my little hangout on Facebook.
  
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  John Durham 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Paul Myers
  
  Kim,Ouch.
  
  As far as that goes, I suspect it would depend a great deal on who you asked.
  
  Paul
  
  Indeed, Les Paul was one of the greatest Guitarists of all time.
  
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KimW 13 years ago

Actually Bravo 75, I currently have 3 forums. A gaming forum, a restricted forum and an IM forum,that I really should be doing more with.
All of the forums have only a few registered members.
We get very little SPAM on the gaming forum and virtually none on the restricted forum and virtually none on the IM forum. The reason none of the IM forum is that you have to join a membership before you can access it.
None on the restricted forum because the niche is extremely small and you would have to work hard to even locate it.
On the other hand I have a couple of blogs that get so much SPAM that a few times I have deleted the blog and started over rather than spend the hours deleting the SPAM comments.
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purplesquril 13 years ago

Easy, just set all links to nofollow.
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- bravo75 13 years ago
  
  Most of them were not just SEO spammers but people actually promoting their products affiliate links on my forum. Anything from Viagra to under sex sites. A lot of it seemed to come from Russia.
  
  Originally Posted by purplesquril
  
  Easy, just set all links to nofollow.
  
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thunderbird 13 years ago

What script did you use to create your forums? There are spam filters, including captcha code type filters. The extreme spammers use automated systems. Some of these bots can bypass captcha or math barriers, but far fewer.
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Sheryl Polomka 13 years ago

I have just set up a forum and I've set it so that new members have to activate an email before registration is complete. I also have a captcha on the registration page. I know it won't stop spam completely but hopefully it might stop some of it.

I've already had my first sex site spammer but I actually noticed them with the link in their profile and deleted them before they had a chance to actually post spam all over the forum.
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HeySal 13 years ago

I use registration with captcha, too - and pity any idiot that gets in there and puts up anything in the way of adult spam - I lock them out and contact their server. regular spam just gets deleted and a note sent.

I used to get some godawful spam - but after locking the offending party out, disabling links, and putting a note on their post who the server is and that they have been contacted, and the post will come down as soon as the server has a chance to see the post.......well after a few of those people don't mess with my forum much. There are easier targets.

Also - it helps if you aren't in the IM niches where half of everyone online is out to push their product down other marketer's throats.
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- Segeant 13 years ago
  
  Beside the captcha and other aforementioned technical, if the forum is new, you can set the Registered User group with limited access and post criteria until you see if they are really above board. Then move then up to an approved Users Group (You can create) will full forum access once you are satisfied with a particular member and their activity on your board. I am running three boards, the newest one on my signature block which is still be constructed.
  
  Adding an additional security question to your captcha would not hurt as well. Solve Media provides human verification similar to captaha for vbulletin and many scripted sites with changing puzzle questions and small revenue sharing ads that you can be paid for like Google Adsense. This is widget-based and you can check it out here:
  
  http // (no www) asi.solvemedia.com/public/puzzle_more_info
  
  Not allowed to place active links in this forum yet :rolleyes:
  
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seasoned 13 years ago

I once had a site that started to get popular. One day I went there and saw TONS of posts! Some idiot in germany decided to create an "advertising" company. Since HE couldn't do it, he tried to get OTHERS to do it automatically, like with MY site. It used a rather popular program and all owners registered on that site to get traffic to THEIR sites.

What did I do? I added another field to the signup form, and had the program reject all entries that didn't have it. Worked like a charm! The HONEST people saw NO difference, and the guys with the automatic submissions were ignored. It was almost like a captcha in reverse.

Steve
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rain21 13 years ago

when i had a forum, I faced the same situation, but by using a captcha system and a registration confirmation method, it can be reduced.
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Sheryl Polomka 13 years ago

I am getting a couple of spams a day using captcha - I don't think it matters what niche the forum is in, they will promote products and websites from any niche. They are really annoying and I worry about how much worse it will get if my forum begins to rank higher. I do wonder sometimes whether it's worth it, but my forum is still new so too early to give up yet
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John Durham 13 years ago

You create a signup process that allows only humans to fill out the form... then you engage a plug in that makes known spammers names appear in red... We delete less than 5-10 spam messages per week right now at 1650 members... back when we were at 200 members... it SAID 600 members because of all the spam... it was a constant battle. A few Tweaks and you can all but 100% fix that prob.

Darren knows more about the technical aspect than I do, but to any techie guy, this is nothing.
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Sheryl Polomka 13 years ago

I think most of my spammers are human spammers - I have the captcha and I've just added a 'are you human' question and I've still managed to get signups. Most of them don't actually post, just the occasional one that makes a post. I guess the rest are just profile spammers perhaps.
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