18 replies to this topic

[AWS]

Due to the spam hit we had today I have placed a restriction on the number of posts a new user can post in a day.

Starting today any new member that signs up will only be able to make 5 posts in a 24 hour period.

I understand there are people that sign up and become valuable members of a community. I apologize to them for having to do this. I have a zero tolerance for spam.

Just to recap all the restrictions I have set on the new member user group.

• Can not post links.
  
• Can not have a signature.
  
• Can not post status update.
  
• Can not import status updates.
  
• Can not post more than 5 times in a 24 hour period.
  
• Can not edit profile or customize profile.

Once a user has contributed 25 posts they are moved into the Registered Members group which removes the above restrictions.

[Shyuan]

When i saw the spams, I was like "admin, come online now.. "

[Gaza]

I'm guessing you no longer use the "Paid IPS Anti-Spam Service" feature here with a serial key? This is why I stopped using IPB forum software before after my subscription to it ran out, then soon found spammers getting in way too easy (and daily) without carrying on paying for it. Which I wasn't going to do seeing as it's basically just "Stop Forum Spam", and that's a free service anyone can use.

Becoming harder and harder now to run a community unless you have some kind of HUMAN anti-spam registration feature working in the background. Q/A and Image Captcha does nothing in stopping them getting in. Saw here yesterday on last count in new topics. You had something silly like 70 new spam threads posted until you remove them later.

It looks well, when you have a FREE forum software like UseBB I'm using coming with (advanced) "Stop Forum Spam" features in there by default, yet expensive paid forum solutions don't have it there (crazy). But know it's needed very much today to help deal with human spammers, instead putting other useless new features in.

There did used to be a StopForumSpam plug-in for using with IPB, but they removed it soon after their own Paid Anti-Spam Service came out. Not sure if there's still one around for using with IPB forums now (this new version), if not you're going to struggle here with human spammers on a regular bases. They'll still join and take things up to that post count limit you've set, but most likely using more new accounts to spam extra topics. And spotted yesterday, you had one Human spammer that created at least 2 accounts "gregote and gregotes".

But it's not just IPB to be fair, recently many XenForo forums have started getting targetted with Human Spam registrations. They've caught onto that forum software now it's become a few years old. I said they would before when users of it kept bragging they didn't get spam like vBulletin sites. That it was too new at the time!

[Marius]

Use Registration Question and Answer Challenges.
I have two forums with IPB and I have no problem with spam.

[david]

You first post and the number 5 on the list kinda don't add up right.

Glad to see this though, no one likes spam, and how many new members post that much in one day anyway

[AWS]

david, on 25 July 2012 - 05:27 PM, said:

You first post and the number 5 on the list kinda don't add up right.

Glad to see this though, no one likes spam, and how many new members post that much in one day anyway

Fixed. It was originally 3 and I changed the first part of the post and forgot the bullet point.

[HWS]

I understand, but it is really annoying. I am a member since some months now and won't get 25 posts for a long time. But there may be an interesting discussion that needs more than 5 posts. Also had a problem before with not being allowed to post an URL.

What we have done at our boards: We put all new members to the "moderated" user group and manually approve their first posts. If we see that the user is not a spammer, we put them into a regular group. If he is a spammer we delete the account and all it's posts.

With that procedure we have no spammers any more AND our new users are not annoyed by being restricted forever.

[ForumContractor]

why not just get the stop forum spam addon for IPB.  instead of limiting good posters?  just a suggestion.  

checks against the database of all known spammers.  while this will still let some get through because they joined a while ago.  or they just have not been caught yet.  

but it is very good.  and should stop 99% of all your spam registration.

since I don't want to waste one of my 5 daily post giving the site
I'll post the link so you can find the addon for all the different types of forums.  

Okay so I can't actually give you the link either.  

so what you would do is go to Stop Forum Spam.  just add a dot comand you have the web address.  

from there you would click on resources up at the top.  

and click on mods and plugins.  just find the software you are running

[AWS]

New spammers are popping up every day and they are not listed in any database. My method works. It's tried and true and I've been using it since I started my first forum in 1996.

I don't see it as an inconvenience at all. In fact I see being able to post a link or have a signature as a privilege that is all too many times abused. After all a forum is for discussions. The only reason to post a link is if the discussion centers around something from another site. Those discussions are rare for the most part.

[dojo]

I know where you're coming from, I had a forum decimated by spam in days. Reason I stopped using iPB anyway.

This should put a damper on spam, but let's hope it won't ruin your new members' experience. I have at least 3 people on my forums who have posted hundreds of replies/new messages in few days. They've done a terrific job in helping us grow faster. Don't want to know how they would have felt if they were restricted. Anyway .. it really depends on the members and of course the 'size' of the spam attacks. I get one spam message every few days, so it's OK, but it if was a really 'drive' against my forum, I'd surely consider some bigger restrictions myself.

[david]

Looks like a member was able to circumvent this some how today :-\

[AWS]

Yes. I'm looking into it now.

[SolidShellSecurity]

Makes it hard to post especially when wanting to post about a major security issue.

[AWS]

What is the major security issue. I'm sure you post about it without links. I have done it many times.

Got an email about the discussion on WebHosting Talk so I posted a thread about it,

http://www.adminaddi...n-rhel-servers/

Edited by AWS, 18 February 2013 - 04:44 PM.
Added discussion link.

[cellarius]

I can understand the need for some of those measures. Anyway, then they at least should work reliably. After having written an introduction of quite some length, my post (which included no link at all!) was rejected because I am not allowed to post links. A mail to the Administration went unanswered.

So, if you're trying to get rid of new users, you're quite succesful...

[HWS]

cellarius, on 24 February 2013 - 03:31 AM, said:

I can understand the need for some of those measures. Anyway, then they at least should work reliably. After having written an introduction of quite some length, my post (which included no link at all!) was rejected because I am not allowed to post links. A mail to the Administration went unanswered.

So, if you're trying to get rid of new users, you're quite succesful...

I had that error too. VERY annoying!!!
The detection of "links" is handled very aggressively. A simple dot without a following empty space triggers it, even if this is far away from being a domain name.

[AWS]

Both of you have been moved to the new group. I do that when I recognize the username.

[HWS]

Thank you.

However, a perhaps better way would be to simply stop autolinking for new members.

[AWS]

Can't do that. The spam we got when links were allowed was too much to deal with.