Idea to stop forum spamming...
Printed From: Web Wiz Forums
Category: Web Wiz Web App Support Forums
Forum Name: Web Wiz Forums
Forum Description: Support forum for Web Wiz Forums application.
URL: https://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=29420
Printed Date: 31 March 2026 at 11:25pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.08 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Idea to stop forum spamming...
Posted By: stevehal
Subject: Idea to stop forum spamming...
Date Posted: 09 June 2011 at 12:50pm
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Hi,
We are sometimes flodded with spams, like 8 different new threads or replies, which all have to be manually deleted. These trace back to obvious out of country businesses that have a person manually create new accounts, and either create new threads or add replies.
A simple feature to at least slow down on this would be a "Wait to allow forum posts on new registrations" option.
If enabled, you would enter the number of minutes a new account has to be created before allowing a post by the person who created the account. Even a wait of 15 minutes may deter some of those "workroom" type posts. You could just do a simple DateDiff function if enabled!
Again, just an idea...
One more idea is the ability to delete all posts by a user. This way instead of doing a search, and manually deleting each message, it could be done in one step. This allows us to keep a suspended account so it cannot be used again.
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Replies:
Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 09 June 2011 at 1:53pm
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If you have a look at the activation time and the time of the first post many of these spam posts are done hours or days after the registration as these people employed to spam forums tend to activate accounts then go back later to do the actual spamming. One of the best ways to stop spam which is similar to what you suggest is have a starting group of under 10 posts where post approval is enabled. This means that new members will require their posts approved till they get to 10 posts. Using this system we find that most spammers only post 1 or 2 posts and then give up as they know they are wasting their time. Version 10 adds a spam filter which allows posts to be rejected of require approval when spam words are used in a post. We find this has more or less eliminated all spam in this forums since introduced. Version 10 also adds options to disable links, images, and Private Messages on a group biases so that new members are not able to do any of these till they reach 10 posts, this also seems to greatly reduce spam. ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: billd3
Date Posted: 09 June 2011 at 2:16pm
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Here is how many of the forum spammers typically work on our forum: Spammer joins. May wait to activate, some don't They post a message that almost makes sense - sort of fits, then they leave. They come back a week or several days later, edit their original messages and add links and ads - after we've stopped paying attention and have assumed they are "ok". Some join, activate, post messages, and leave. All within an hour. We don't have a lot of trouble because of of our mods is a bloodhound - suspicious names cause him to check IP addresses. He often has them suspended and IP blocked before their first post is finished. ------------- BillD http://theamcpages.com http://theamcforum.com |
Posted By: stevehal
Date Posted: 09 June 2011 at 2:32pm
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Our forum users are also "bloodhounds" as you say. In many cases it is only takes a few minutes until I get a report of a spam post. But it is still terribly frustrating.
If they wait a week then come back, then yes, there is little we can do.
A batch delete posts by a user member would be good if that could be added.
Also, maybe the spam filter introduced recently will work... and maybe at some point a database could be shared for known spam words.
Also, the group idea for members with less than 10 posts seems reasonable!
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Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 09 June 2011 at 5:16pm
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The spam filer would be different for different forums. For example for some reason we seem to have lots of spam posts on golf clubs and shoes so both these are in the spam filter and if you have these words in your posts then the post will need approving. ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: dunga
Date Posted: 12 August 2011 at 3:07pm
Seems to me that if you limit linking you will greatly reduce spamming and low level advertising. Many forum members don't use this feature and the site's very casual moderation is appreciated. Why battle spam when it might be possible to prevent it. Thanks for any ideas on this ... yeah, I know ... Upgrade. |
WebWiz-Bruce wrote:Posted By: fooladi
Date Posted: 12 August 2011 at 4:17pm
| is it possible separate links from posts as footnotes which need approving by moderators? |
Posted By: wildcat dude
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 2:50am
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What worked for us, is this feature.
Administrator Member Activation
New members will not be able to use their account till the admin activates their membership. An activation email will be sent to the forum email address entered above. We then get an email of any new user that registers. I have my email account setup to alert me via a text message and I have rules in place that copies the email to a shared folder so my other admins/moderators can review. So any one of them can verified and cross check. We verify IP's first (don't allow China, Russia or other hot spamming/hacking countries or known IP's), then we check email addresses and userid's. Interesting stuff you can find out if you're presistent. That has dropped our spam to 0. I know eventually we might let somebody in we don't want, but compared to the way it was before, our life is GRAND!
 I've even got rid of the Suspended User Account - don't need it (we used it before to quickly identify spammers, it was useless to delete their account).Too bad the ban IP addresses is useless (even the global filter for banning email addresses don't work) and I don't have access to the routers, or I'd stop them before they reached the forum. Working with our web admin now to implement the spider.txt so we can block the bad spiders.
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Posted By: WebWiz-Bruce
Date Posted: 12 September 2011 at 10:02am
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The IP and Email ban features are not useless if you set them correctly. For example if you want to block a range such as 1.1.1.0 you would use 1.1.1.* this will then mean that anyone in that range would not be able to register on the forum or be able to post within forums. With the email ban feature you can block just one email address or a email domain, for example as long as email activation is enabled *@hotmail.com would block all people with a hotmail.com email address from registering to use the forums. ------------- https://www.webwiz.net/web-wiz-forums/forum-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - Web Wiz Forums Hosting https://www.webwiz.net/web-hosting/windows-web-hosting.htm" rel="nofollow - ASP.NET Web Hosting |
Posted By: alabamatoy
Date Posted: 14 September 2011 at 4:57pm
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See the http://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=29712" rel="nofollow - stopforumspam thread in this forum. There are over 7 million entries the the stopforumspam database, and if you sign up, you can push your own findings into it for the benefit of others. So far, its working nicely for me, but Ive only had it running in automated form for a few days. It caught and blocked 3 spammers last night alone. I get a nice little email message that says:
Registrant hello520 at IP address 65.49.68.153 attempted to register with email mailto:hellohu@ymail.com" rel="nofollow - hellohu@ymail.com and was found in the blacklist by stopforumspam.
or
Registrant fcy19910506 at IP address 124.160.102.138 attempted to register with email mailto:hjy512339041@163.com" rel="nofollow - hjy512339041@163.com and was found in the blacklist by stopforumspam.
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Posted By: ltlfoote
Date Posted: 02 October 2011 at 4:08pm
wildcat dude - where in the admin is this feature? It sounds like what I need! |
Posted By: alabamatoy
Date Posted: 28 October 2011 at 3:03pm
| See http://forums.webwiz.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=29712" rel="nofollow - this thread here in this forum for an even better way, an enhancement to the admin auth of new registrants. |
Posted By: wildcat dude
Date Posted: 04 November 2011 at 1:48pm
Sorry, I seldom come here. Its under Email Settings, at the bottom of that page you'll see this
Administrator Member Activation
New members will not be able to use their account till the admin activates their membership. An activation email will be sent to the forum email address entered above. Just select Yes then it'll send you an email with the user's IP, email
address and userid with a link to activate. We don't until we've checked the IP address and research their userid and email address. If we find they posted content which is not in keeping with our standards, we don't allow them or block them. We don't bother with email blocking, its useless in our opinion. IP blocking isn't much better as it won't block China spammers from 110.80.0.0/13 range, you have to do each one like 110.80.*.* through 110.87.*.* which is a more tedious operation. (and still working on it)
Unfortunately I don't have access to the web server and we don't have access to the routers (where I'd prefer to just block whole countries from even looking). I'm just the forum admin and not the person who installs/moves the database. But I live with it.
But for now this has STOPPED 100% of spammers in their tracks and 97% of undesirables. You'll still get the occasional ones that don't have family values. (as we do have kids that read our forums and don't allow inappropriate langauge (and too much work to put ALL that junk in a bad word filter)
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