I'm getting Spam

[Deleted User]

My forum (http://www.internet-forumboard.tk) is getting spammed a lot and all the spam is getting picked up by Akismet in my Spam Queue a lot. But I don't wanna go digging through my spam queue every day. How do I heal my forum back to normal? (Gibberish Usernames such as tjdkfs15sdf and emails like if.afsdfs@outlook.com)

UnderDog

You search on the forum and find a couple of discussions, like this one : http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/196131/#Comment_196131 then you try those things, then you post (with your version number) telling that you searched and tried And of course that you filled peregrine's poll...

Clean your user list and stop posting your url

[Deleted User]

Yes I did peregrine's poll, but It's still highly uncontrollable, I cleaned out my user list, and I'm sorry for posting my URL

hbf

there are so many good threads on this topic already. i'm not going to provide anything here other than to say, you could just wipe the DB and start over... last i looked you didn't have any actual users or discussion anyway.

Shadowdare

Read the other discussions to see what people are using to successfully reduce the number of spam registrations. Instead of using just Akismet, you can also use the plugins StopForumSpam, Registration Restrict Logger, BotStop, and so on.

[Deleted User]

I had to delete them. I have 8 non-spammers. I had 9 spammers, but cleared them out

[Deleted User]

I'm downloading them

[Deleted User]

I uploaded them, but I doubt the spammers are bots. What do I do at that point?

hbf

report them to stop forum spam and delete them.

[Deleted User]

How? @StopForumSpam?

Shadowdare

@ilovetech said:
How? StopForumSpam?

Visit the Stop Forum Spam website: http://stopforumspam.com/add

openletter

@UnderDog @ilovetech I also posted my URL in a post and was told not to post my URL after I posted my URL. I read through @peregrine posts about posting and don't recall seeing anything about not posting URLs. I'm not arguing that URLs should be posted, just that if they aren't supposed to be posted, then someone should make a post about not posting URLs. Also, what is the issue with posting URLs?

whu606

@openletter

It is a simple question of why a URL is posted.

If there is a valid reason, no problems.

If it is just being dropped in to try to boost references, then it isn't on, imo.

[Deleted User]

@whu606 I did have a valid reason to drop in the URL and the reason is: In order to solve the spam problem, for some people they have to take a look at the situation. That's what I'm putting the URL for

openletter

@ilovetech Just went to your site and saw the word math question. The reason I had recommended using the above stated method for questions is that word math problems are easily overcome with simple software, and I think the same will be true with logic problems or basically anything that can be easily figured out through definite terms. Implication and inference are much more difficult to overcome, so I believe there is some future-proofing in using this method, though I think in the long run we're just going to have to pay some service to keep forums bot-free, charge users to join a forum, use a service that charges users in order to verify they are not bots, etc., but I do feel that eventually completely free usage of forums will not be possible.

The 'above stated' was in another thread (getting mixed up):
http://vanillaforums.org/discussion/comment/196736/#Comment_196736

hbf

@whu606 said:
openletter

It is a simple question of why a URL is posted.

If there is a valid reason, no problems.

If it is just being dropped in to try to boost references, then it isn't on, imo.

this can be extended to any post, not just posting your URL. some people just post because they like to smell their own farts.

[Deleted User]

@hbf What makes spam on this forum?

vrijvlinder

UnderDog

Yep, I wanted to say the same thing. This thread is going nowhere. I need to close it.