Spam postings on the BBS

VelvetFog · #1 (**permalink**) 11-27-2006, 10:59 PM

I have seen a number of spam postings on this BBS lately.
In each case, it is the first posting by a new user.

Perhaps new accounts should be configured for a one or two day "cooling off" period before they can be used to post items?

KSeemann · #2 (**permalink**) 11-27-2006, 11:30 PM

That´s going on for Weeks now... mostly on Weekends...

The Registration for this Board should be protected by those "Type the Letters/Numbers you see" Pictures to defeat Spambots from opening Accounts.

Gert Hansen · #3 (**permalink**) 11-27-2006, 11:54 PM

Hi there all,

we also noticed that,
we deleted about 8-10 threads a day,

Our IT guys will take a look at it to see if we can improve the registration.

thx Gert

drees · #4 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 12:26 AM

Thanks, I do my best to report spam posts when I see them.

Gert Hansen · #5 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 10:34 AM

Hi there,

I checked back with IT and have good and bad news.

The good news are, that we already do email verification AND also Captchas (the small images with numbers in it).

Now the bad news is, that the spammers are intelligent enough to somehow overcome this spam trap.

We are now investigating other ways to keep spam not flooding the board.

regards
Gert

drees · #6 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 10:37 AM

More moderators, perhaps?

ReD-MaN · #7 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 02:56 PM

Maybe some volunteer moderators, who could keep an eye on spam. Kind of, community leaders or something.

Klaus Umbach · #8 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 07:18 PM

I just updated vBulletin. They have quite a few nice, new anti-spam-features. The captchas are even for a human hard to read now

(and I didn't pick all possible options!)

I also blocked some e-mail-domains (and banned the existing users with that domains!) (mail.ru, gawab.com, cachette.com and as I never got a usefull mail from .biz or .info, they are now blocked/banned as well)

Some patterns in (new) usernames are blocked now, too. (e.g. you are not able to add a new user called "Business Analyst")

I hope this helps and that I am not too restrictive.

Regards
Klaus

P.S.: beside that, the new version of vBulletin didn't like the old theme and I had to reimplement it from scratch. I hope you are happier with the colors now.

drees · #9 (**permalink**) 11-28-2006, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Klaus Umbach

I just updated vBulletin.

Thanks, hopefully that will help. I notice that at least these 2 images are missing:

Code:

http://www.astaro.org/images/astaro/buttons/multiquote_off.gif
http://www.astaro.org/images/astaro/buttons/viewpost.gif

Klaus Umbach · #10 (**permalink**) 11-30-2006, 08:20 AM

OK, banning existing users by e-mail-domains in the management-interface of the forum didn't work. I reallized, that these damn bastards created about 500 accounts a few months ago, when the new-user-process was less restrictive.

Now I banned all of them manually in the mysql-database. (mail.ru, cashette.com and gawab.com). This time it really should help!