phpbb forum / spam how do i manage it

i get alot of spam on my forum so much that i cant manage it, please help !

 

I would switch to SMF, it's a hell of a lot better an more admin/user friendly. I don't get any spam on my forum for forum owners any more. This is what I did: http://www.forumzadmin.com/index.php/topic,213.0.html

 

Do you force new signups to verify there email address before they are able to post?
Do you make them fill out a captcha before they post or register?

I would also suggest blocking IP's from Vietnam and China. Many many many spam bots use Vietnam/China IP's due to the lack of cyber laws in those countries.

 

A few things you want to do is:

1. Add advanced captchas which are hard to be read by bots. There are a lot of programs around which crack captchas.
2. Add a few unusual tick boxes like "i am not a bot" to your registration page.

Only reason the spam is generated even after enabling captcha is because tools like senuke x use external captcha breaking services like "Death by captcha" which are inserted by real humans. So adding unusual tick boxes which are not available in default registration pages will help you a lot.

 

thanks but i know they have to use captcha but i dont no if they have to verify there email ? and yea i have been deleting ip but now its to many

 

ok thanks i guess im gonna delete the site i pay 500 dollars for it

 

what is it ?

 

Can you share the URL???

 

Sorry Sam,this link is not working anymore.

 

I have recently started a phpbb forum myself. Will I encounter this type of spam problem too? Is a software issue?

 

I think so. So you have to be more careful. You have to keep good and experienced moderators with paying them to reduce spamming on your new built forum.

 

Spam is indeed a serious problem with phpBB forum. We do have captcha and recaptcha but there are few SERVICES which use humans to break the captcha and recaptcha codes.

You can try following solutions:

1) There is an akismet mod for phpBB, you can install the mod and akismet will take care of spam.
Here is the link (or you can google it.) https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=9087805

2) Add custom fields to your sign up form.
3) put some math questions or some weird anti bot questions like "what is the color of sky / apple / grass?"
4) There are few blacklisted- IP lists around the internet with forum admins, you can put that link in your blocked list.

Apart from that, you can also try some coding modification and another anti spam mod discussed in the following post.
http://www.influenced.net/2009/06/03/akismet-spam-filtering-in-phpbb3/

(I am not related with any of the websites and these are just for reference so that you can actually start using modification.)

 

Once you take control of registrations, you have pretty much won the battle of spam.