Spammers + registration

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Spammers + registration

Postby Ric » Mon Jan 16, 2012 5:53 am

Due to the recent influx of spammers, I've switched the board over to "admin approval".
This means new accounts can't do anything until I personally approve them. Any obvious spammers get deleted immediately.
I'll try to improve the automatic spambot protection so I can relax this soon.
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby iisshhyy » Mon Jan 16, 2012 8:58 am

it's a pitty that additional time & slight delay for genuine users is required because of these dickheads.
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby chris12 » Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:45 am

Ric, a good plugin for phpbb to reduce spambots is Sortables CAPTCHA Plugin. I've got it on one of my clients boards and we've had great results.

Could be worth checking out. :)
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby bosc0 » Mon Jan 16, 2012 9:53 am

^ +1... used on RSLC and works well.
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Ric » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:09 pm

It looks like I just left the same antibot questions there too long, and someone eventually told the bots what answer to put.
Changing the question has stopped them dead.
I'm going to leave admin activation selected for a couple of days to see what happens. Note, any attempts to change your email address will also be delayed until I manually approve them.
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby SegR » Mon Jan 16, 2012 1:59 pm

Ric wrote:It looks like I just left the same antibot questions there too long, and someone eventually told the bots what answer to put.
Changing the question has stopped them dead.
I'm going to leave admin activation selected for a couple of days to see what happens. Note, any attempts to change your email address will also be delayed until I manually approve them.


Interesting that they made the effort to get around the questions. I co-manage another forum and found the question/answer approach to be much more effective than the CAPTCHA plugin which seems to do little to stop bots creating accounts regardless of complexity settings.
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Ric » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:12 am

I've just turned off the "Admin activation".
Not a single spammer has got through since I changed the question a few days ago.
I'm surprised how many genuine new registrations we are getting every day though. Have a look at memberlist.php?start=4650 8)
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby JKeep2.5i » Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:53 am

is that almost 5000??
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Ric » Thu Jan 19, 2012 10:23 am

If you filter out the users who have never posted, that leaves about 2500.
Then take away 95 who have been banned. ;) (Almost all spammers)

About 1410 have made at least 5 posts.
About 1040 have made at least 10 posts.
About 310 have made at least 100 posts.
41 have made at least 1000 posts.
3 have made at least 5000 posts. :shock:
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby JKeep2.5i » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:21 pm

still great numbers there I'm sure your very happy with the progress of this great forum you have created :D :mrgreen:
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Smithyy » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:39 pm

5000+ must be a few diehard liberty fans :)
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Ric » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:46 pm

memberlist.php?sk=d&sd=d

#2 has pretty much stopped posting.
#3 was a surprise, I didn't realise he had been so active. ;)
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Smithyy » Thu Jan 19, 2012 1:50 pm

Clarence doing us proud, even though he drives an audi now!! :lol:
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby tangcla » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:11 pm

Ric wrote:3 have made at least 5000 posts. :shock:

Woohoo! I'm there!
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Re: Spammers + registration

Postby Smithyy » Thu Jan 19, 2012 2:15 pm

Was wondering Ric, do you make enough $$ from the merchandise sales alone to keep the forum running smoothly? or do you chip in some yourself?
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