Need major help dealing with spam!!

[Fullmoon]

So the last month our forum has been set to admin approval only. In that month we have deleted hundreds of spam accounts and had to look through each one to check they are not real members trying to join.

I found a Stop Forum Spam mod for PHPBB and the other admin added it. She also added something else...... let me see.... ahhhh she signed us up to Akismet.... I don't know what that is but anyway, that has majorly cut the amount of spammers we had been getting and also highlighted spam posted on the board. We were receiving 15 pages of spam a day now we are getting 5/6 but with posts spamming one section of our board. The fact that they are only posting in one section makes us think they have got the direct link from somewhere, but we've posted that link everywhere :/

So I was wondering seeing as we are still getting hammered if anyone here had any tips or help to get rid of these sods!

 

[iPhonefreak]

If they are humans you can't do anything, but if their bots you can prevent them. I have a custom coded spam tool that we use of my site at registration, and it keeps them out. If you have a little cash we could let you have a copy.

 

[Venom]

Use q & a verification, and set new users so there first 5 posts are on the moderation que. 🙂

 

[Fullmoon]

q & a verification? What is that? We have a question on the registration page, plus a captcha thing.

First 3 posts are in a mod que.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

Is there a keycaptcha mod for phpbb, that's something I've been using on my sites and it's helped.

Q & A is question and answer.
Setup questions that target your site.. like if your site is about dirt bikes, make a question like "what is the common tire size" I don't know if that is a good question but you get the idea, make it about your niche.

Other then that I would suggest a few anti-spam methods if they are available.

Regards
-Brandon

 

[Fullmoon]

Yea we have What is the name of Iron Maiden's mascot. Might have to add another.

 

[Patrick W.]

KeyCAPTCHA is really good, I used it myself for a bit. I recently found a little script at a phpBB forum host that checks all registrations against the SFS database, and any registration that passes a score that is set by you gets directed to a page, that you can customize. The one I use does not have any links on it, it is just dead end page telling them that they got blocked.

If this is something that interests you, I'll dig up the link for you.

 

[Fullmoon]

Ohh yes please, that sounds good!

 

[Patrick W.]

You can download the small, 2 file ZIP from this thread: http://support.prophpbb.com/post16810.html#p16810

There is only 1 edit to be made to the ucp_register.html and one file to upload to your root directory, stopforumspam.php

You make the setting edits in the stopforumspam.php file.

Hope this helps your spam problem! 🙂

 

[Aki-P]

A lot of spammers like to post links, if you can find a plugin for phpBB that'll block them from posting links unless they had a set amount of posts, that could help too.

 

[Ashley]

A lot of spammers like to post links, if you can find a plugin for phpBB that'll block them from posting links unless they had a set amount of posts, that could help too.

I'll have to ask on ProphpBB's support forum about this, but I did find out a while ago here that they have rigged something up so that if a spammer/troublemaker tries to sign up when they are permanently banned, they'll get a message saying that they're banned or not welcome on the site or something. May have to ask MD to clarify that a little bit.

 

[Patrick W.]

You can download the small, 2 file ZIP from this thread: http://support.prophpbb.com/post16810.html#p16810

There is only 1 edit to be made to the ucp_register.html and one file to upload to your root directory, stopforumspam.php

You make the setting edits in the stopforumspam.php file.

Hope this helps your spam problem! 🙂

^That is what MD "rigged" up and publicly released. I use on Forum Launch and it works 100%.

 

[Ashley]

You can download the small, 2 file ZIP from this thread: http://support.prophpbb.com/post16810.html#p16810

There is only 1 edit to be made to the ucp_register.html and one file to upload to your root directory, stopforumspam.php

You make the setting edits in the stopforumspam.php file.

Hope this helps your spam problem! 🙂

^That is what MD "rigged" up and publicly released. I use on Forum Launch and it works 100%.

Oh yeah. Now that I read that that does sound familiar. Very awesome mod indeed and a good way to keep trouble makers out.