i own a vbulletin forum, it's hard to stop spammers, i use the prune/move to delete hundreds accounts weekly, i have made the decision to give up forum business. it's better if i was a forum member rather than a forum moderator. anyone here have the same experience?
You need to avail yourself of the anti spam plugins that are available. I cant see why you have to delete / prune or move hundreds of accounts weekly? This inidcates your steps that you have taken to stop the spam are insufficient....it really isnt that hard. Take a look in the VB forum and see what everyone else is using. I know VB is a spam magnet but it can be defeated without too much trouble.
My forum was being bombarded with those spams which advertised softwares with screenshots and few others one post but links only posters. I am not experienced with vBulletin mods or plugins. However, in order to prevent spam, first of all I used/installed the following codes/mods: Project Honey Pot http://www.projecthoneypot.org/home.php Stop Forum Spam http://www.stopforumspam.com/ This have efficiently reduced both bots and human spammers because they scanned the respective site's databases and prevent bots or humans form blacklisted emails/usernames/ips. (1 or 2 false positives among 1000+ blocked so it's a worthy add on, IMO, from my own experience). Make sure you also implement: [disallow guest posts] Captcha Additional Image Verification or Puzzles upon registration I've been receiving 0 spams or just 1 spam per week, so far. But then my forum isn't popular yet.
vBulletin 4 has reCaptcha and Akismet plugins integrated, I recommend these as they're free. vBulletin 3 I believe also has them as a plugin you'll have to search on vbulletin.org
Did you try the NoSpam! http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=183329 Set a few not-so-easy questions and spam on your forum should go down considerably.
Thanks for the head up, it's a great plugin and i installed it. i have set a list of questions below: 13 x 26 = 27 x 15 = 43 x 12 = 33 x 56 = 123 x 11 = let's test whether it works within one week.
Those are too easy. Some spam programmes can solve arithmetic questions. Make them a bit difficult. e.g. If you have a webmaster forum, you can ask something like "Which company Matt Cutts works for"?
For future projects use IPB instead of vBulletin, it has a built in spam system... http://www.invisionpower.com/products/spammonitor/ I feel your pain though, forums can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
I had the same problem, I used captcha and email confirmation, then also some spammers came (more than 20 a day). After that I sold the forum to a friend because he wanted to buy it and I didn't want to continue the forum. Maintaining a forum is really not an easy work. Wordpress or Joomla site is more better and easy to maintain
After clean up the user database, erase more than one thousand "members", install nospam vb mods, there is no any new fake user registeration for a few hours on my webmaster forum, it's a good signal. @subdivisions, thanks for the info, but i think i won't start any new forum project right now though it's a good software. @rain21, hey buddy do you throw the fire ball to your friend?
i agree stopforumspam.com you should be apart of but also install the glowhost spam mod it will stop them dead in their tracks. along with recaptcha and other tools for your forum.
Deny Russia, China, India, Africa, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq and you get rid of almost all spam. If you want to give up then so be it.
http://www.countryipblocks.net/ Use the tool in the sidebar there. Choose ".htaccess deny" as the method, and choose the countries RectangleMan listed. Then, paste the result into your htaccess file. (a file called .htaccess in your site root)