OK.. I'm Sick Of It!! phpBB forum owners, how do you protect your forums from SPAM ?

I have a decent forum, in some particular niche I deal with.

Everything was fine, until my forum hit PR 2. Since then the maintenance has increased many folds.

I've been fighting a lot of Spammers. I had Captcha's turned on for visual verification. Then later on also put on a mod for textual verification.

The spammers somehow seem to find a way past these visual and textual verification. I also have 'email verification' turned on. From all this, I guess we can conclude that spammers definitely don't take the normal 'register' route, instead go for direct form submission.

I'm curious to know if any one of you have successfully implemented any mod to get rid of spammers successfully. If so, please share the info on how to achieve the same

All Success,
~G

 

Anyone ?

I've checked a couple of mods on phpbb forum. But I want to hear from ppl who successfully have implemented something in the past which is working for them.

All Success,
~G

 

I have. I use many different mods.

 

Check this out

http://www.lithiumstudios.org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=25&sid=f292f1f388d299b858f4bcf260068f71

It's a great script that makes it really hard for spam bots to register. Also has logs too so you can monitor IP's and emails that fail to enter the correct captcha code.

I used it back when I had my phpBB forum.

 

I had the same problem & it did seem impossible to stop, however it can be stopped easily. Simply change the actual registration forms PHP code:

http://domain-name.com/forum/profile.php?mode=register&(change this bit like below)=true

domain-name.com/forum/profile.php?mode=register&nospamregistration=true

I think you have to edit about 1-5 files & the mod can be found online

 

My partner implemented 3 mods in tandem, which have completely shut out all spam registrations 100% - when I next speak to him i'll try to get details

 

Exactly, I have tried this mod on my phpbb forum and ever since I installed it, I haven't had any spam bot registration.

 

Have a look at my "Forum Owners & Programmers thread" Might have an answer.

 

I use the mod(I forgot the name)
It wont allow users to post URLs until users reach a selected number of posts. So, few spammy posts with no URL isnt a problems for my forum

 

Update - I've collected a comprehensive listing of all anti-spam mods. It's a work in progress, but got the phpbb ones done. Working on VBulletin now, and other forum software applications in the pipeline. 3rd link in my sig.

 

There are many extra verification mods you can use that work well.

 

i have created a mod for verification using akismet. It's very simple, and it does not have any admin interface yet. Basically it just verifies a post for spam and if it finds it will just drop it and disable the username. I can't post a link to it but you can find it on patchlog dot com if you are interested.

 

solution to avoid spam is to refrain from using phpbb

 

Only installed a single hack on my phpbb board to prevent spam and that single mod allows me to control which sections can be filled at the time of registration, have better captcha, make sure only people who have posted a certain number of posts can post a link.

Result?

No spam in weeks, even though the traffic has gone up by 25%.

 

Ban URL mod .

 

that's a good mod. Can u check and let us know what is its name? Tks!

 

Try switching to VBulliten

you will be happy.

 

Vbulletin sometimes haunted by bots. I recommend SMF

 

Theres a simple modification.

There is a mod that will allow someone to fill out a profile field like.

What games do you own?

-Wii
-PS3
-etc

Make it so they have to pick one atleast and make it related to your site bot's never get through mine anymore.