A Trick for Fighting Forum Spam

[jyy]

Simply ask users (at registration) to spell a word backward. It works on all of my projects - except one. In that case, unfortunately, it isn't foolproof. However, it is worth a bother, though.

 

[Cam]

I've seen CAPTCHAs like that on other websites before, but I've never had that implemented on any of my own sites. That's definitely something worth considering though. Thanks for sharing your tip.

 

[JewishPoptart89]

Allegedly Google made a new CAPTCHA that doesn't even need user input.

 

[Shortie]

Spelling a word backwards is a great way to fight spam however as you say, it's not fool proof. I personally don't feel any kind of captcha is perfect as you will always get someone that slips through and manages to spam. I feel it's about trial and error to find one that works best for you and that works best for keeping the spam away. I personally like the question captchas and the image captchas.

 

[xXInfectedXx]

Good trick! That's the problem, some human spammers use spam tools on there PC to bypass CAPTCHA's. I made users spell a word backward to verify they were human but a couple of robots still managed to register and spam my forum. It's still good to use CAPTCHA, it's an extra security feature

 

[Cryckit]

We finally implemented the spell a word backward (at registration) here on the forum a while back at the request of one of our moderators. We on the Executive Team were all for that. It's helped in the fight against spam, but it only goes so far. We've had other anti-spam measures in place for a very long time now and are looking to add a few more of them at the request of our Moderation Team. Spam on forums will always be an issue, but the problem is making sure that it doesn't keep escalating out of control.

 

[jyy]

Good trick! That's the problem, some human spammers use spam tools on there PC to bypass CAPTCHA's. I made users spell a word backward to verify they were human but a couple of robots still managed to register and spam my forum. It's still good to use CAPTCHA, it's an extra security feature

Sorry to hear about that. I suppose your forum was one of the unlucky few where it doesn't work.

 

[Empire]

One reason that I like IPB forum software, it has allot built into for the sake of spam and whatnot. You have Q&A then CAPTCHAs and other two options. Yet rather have two options when you join followed by emailing activating.

That being said that you can stop the bots but won't stop the real person joining with an fake email and spamming. So to deal with that you have an newbie member rank, it's very limited until they reach over 5 or more posts and can set that member to mod approve all posts