Controlling Spam

[Hans Adams]

I once had a forum that was massively spammed everyday. I just decided to destroy that forum. Bot members were turning up by the thousands. It was horrible. I don't want that to happen again. How do you prevent spam on your sites?

 

[Claraviolet]

There are plugins to do that.
Also, try "stopforumspam" plugin and add "are you a human plugin".
That should do the trick. Also, adjust the settings, for "ip address" , email address and such

 

[Sharon]

We've all seen it happen...we log on and we see three or more posts of some random person signing up and just posting long posts with embedded links but basically makes no sense at all. Why do they do this? Are they really able to generate money by leaving random links on random forums?

How do you deal with spam? Do you just delete the messages and block the members? ...or do you go as far as storing the messages in a separate archive?

What do you do to prevent spammers from being able to post on your forum?

 

[Bass]

I used to get a lot of spammers on my forum - even to the point where there were 50 registered members on my forum and 30 of them were just spammers. This was because I wasn't implementing anything to stop spammers from registering. I've added in some security measures and now I get almost no spammers at all. However, if I were to get a spammer, I'd simply purge their posts and delete them.

 

[Shole]

I usually install mods that prevent spam. That's the best way to deal with spam, preventing them to register and post and banning the ones who are able to avoid the spam control mods.

 

[Arariel]

The only issue I have with spam is in my advertising area where I allow guest posting. For that, though, I have the moderation queue enabled.

 

[Belthazar]

I just use some registration security, then ban then as they come and remove their messages. I don't now what else you can do, unfortunately.

 

[deltachi2012]

I usually use recaptcha, but If your talking about member spam, I usually keep a watch on the forums and hire limited staff to help maintain a professional forum.

 

[David17k7]

I don't have any spam protection on my forum, but I only ever got 2 spam accounts with 1 spam topic each. However my site's demo forum get 100+ spam accounts and posts daily :-/

 

[Cierra]

I use MyBB, so the StopForumSpam plugin is automatically integrated with the MyBB forum system. So I say that that catches most of the spam, and the other things that I have installed is the "Are You Human?" module, and two required security questions.

 

[reddyash]

For my forum spam is dealt only by only plugins. In xenforo we have many plugins that prevent spam. I am not familiar with other softwares cannot really talk about them.

 

[Bass]

I use MyBB, which has the StopForumSpam plugin. That, and I have a good security question, so I don't get very many spammers at all.

 

[Shock]

Definitely use a plugin. StopForumSpam is a good one, as mentioned above. There is one that adds a registration security question too.

 

[reddyash]

I have installed stophuman spam mod which does a good job. If suppose I see some spam posts then i will delete them.

 

[Dancing Mongoose]

I mainly install spam prevention plugins however sometimes such don't have an effect in preventing spammers so I recruit a staff team and we can deal with spamming as a strong moderator unit. So, manually stopping spam may help.

 

[ddoesmc]

I use spam prevention plugins as well. It will usually do the job, but if not, I have my staff team assist and ban the member. Spamming makes the forum look very poor.

 

[Jake1]

CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA would help prevent spammers greatly. To stop spammers that are already registered on the forum, I would "purge" them or, if you don't have the "purge" option, I would completely ban them. Spamming makes forums look unorganized in every way possible.

 

[Jake1]

We had two duplicate threads with the same topic. They have been merged.

 

[xXInfectedXx]

You would have to enable a email verification system and CAPTCHA or reCAPTCHA in your registration, this would slow the process of spamming down. Then if they do register, just keep removing and banning them.