So it's been a few weeks now with the new thing in place to require manual activation of all accounts. It's pretty crazy. There are about 20 new registrations a day and they all kinda look like spam to me but it's really hard to tell. Since the new requirement, only maybe 5 people or so have emailed in for activation like I ask for.
So... what's the status report (mostly talking to the moderators here)? Has the spam stopped? Are you still getting any? Is the new requirement too strict? Are we driving people away or has activity remained OK?
There IS a CAPTCHA on the registration. Isn't that crazy? So either the captcha has been cracked programatically or it's literally outsourced to human beings who crack it.
We'll roll with it for a while longer and see. I don't care about the burdon on me, no big deal at all. I just don't want people to be turned off by it and not come back. The more the merrier...
To be honest, if I sign up for a forum it's usually because I want to make an immediate post. If I can't right away, I will generally move on and completely forget the forum existed. Just my 2 cents there.
To be honest, if I sign up for a forum it's usually because I want to make an immediate post. If I can't right away, I will generally move on and completely forget the forum existed. Just my 2 cents there.
That's exactly what I'm worried about. But at the same time a forum full of spam is almost worse. Especially when it's nasty porn and posts of 10,000 links to WOW Gold crap.
I'll probably let this ride for a while longer and see if I can dig up some other spam prevention methods that can allow me to turn open registration back on.
You could give this one a try: http://bbantispam.com/atc/.
It's an easy to install mod for phpBB3 that asks a member a question upon logging in. It stops most spambots from being able to login and fill your forum with spam. It's not perfect but it's worth a shot.
I know some things about PHPBB and i'll list some ways to stop SPAM: Have A Custom Profile Field,call it Real Name, check Display on registration screen: and check Required field: (because most scripts See name and put there username). And also you can Some thing like Do you CSS-Tricks and make it Required so the bots don't know want to put.
I caught another 2 little buggers this morning, banned and deleted their posts....
aaaawow had one post full of links shufei9910411 was more sneaky, they kust linked stupid text to a website, thet once reading and hovering over a link, you realises its wow gold crap again.
I can assure you I was not making light of the situation.
I didn't realize that I posted a link to a ROR and ASP reverse CAPTCHA.
Sorry, I thought that you thought that this site was RoR or ASP, which I was enlightening you, but you really where referring to the links you posted, in which I just now realized I fail somewhat hard.
So... what's the status report (mostly talking to the moderators here)? Has the spam stopped? Are you still getting any? Is the new requirement too strict? Are we driving people away or has activity remained OK?
Is there a different CAPTCHA version that you could try? Maybe they have found a softspot in the one being used... Or maybe its just real people...
I think it has stopped more. but it may be more of a burden on your part to activate users???
I think the activity has slightly slowed, but maybe people just have a life and I don't :lol:
ik
mmm actually I would agree with that...
I'll probably let this ride for a while longer and see if I can dig up some other spam prevention methods that can allow me to turn open registration back on.
It's an easy to install mod for phpBB3 that asks a member a question upon logging in. It stops most spambots from being able to login and fill your forum with spam. It's not perfect but it's worth a shot.
Have A Custom Profile Field,call it Real Name, check Display on registration screen: and check Required field: (because most scripts See name and put there username).
And also you can Some thing like Do you CSS-Tricks and make it Required so the bots don't know want to put.
That Should stop some spam.
aaaawow had one post full of links
shufei9910411 was more sneaky, they kust linked stupid text to a website, thet once reading and hovering over a link, you realises its wow gold crap again.
the both of them had 2 posts each
I would suggest you take a look at a reverse CAPTCHA.
A couple links:
http://www.ccs.uottawa.ca/webmaster/reverse-captcha.html
http://b.lesseverything.com/2008/10/8/less-reverse-captcha
Regards,
Meshach
We could only wish that Chris was running RoRBB ;)
Do you mean like this kind of RoR?
http://pix.motivatedphotos.com/2008/7/4/633507747147468646-raff-out-roud.jpg
(jk :lol: )
Sorry, I didn't realize it was ROR and ASP.
It would be easy to make one with PHP.
All you have to do is make a hidden field with an id and with PHP if the field is filled then give them an error.
Make sense?
Meshach
Oh, and @Meshach:
He's using phpBB with a PHP interpreter, unless you were being facetious...
I can assure you I was not making light of the situation.
I didn't realize that I posted a link to a ROR and ASP reverse CAPTCHA.
Sorry, I thought that you thought that this site was RoR or ASP, which I was enlightening you, but you really where referring to the links you posted, in which I just now realized I fail somewhat hard.
It's a monthly thing.