How Do You Stop Forum Spam?

[Kane]

Of late I have been receiving a lot of spammers on my forums. Deleting hundreds of spam posts and banning spammers everyday is giving headaches. Have you ever received a lot of spam posts on your communities, how did you handle it. Is there a simple yet effective way to stop spam in your forum?

 

[Grant]

Create better ways of stopping these users from even signing up to post. Make it a requirement that users have to post in a certain area before they can post in the main areas. This should help weed out the spammers. Maybe they have to post the first 20 posts in this new user area and then once you see they're posting by the rules, you can let them into the main forum. That's what I would do anyway.

 

[Kane]

I have tried keeping 20 posts for a new users under manual approval. However, once they are approved for automatic posting after doing 20 posts, they start spamming. If I make harder to sign up, I will also lose genuine users.

 

[Grant]

I have tried keeping 20 posts for a new users under manual approval. However, once they are approved for automatic posting after doing 20 posts, they start spamming. If I make harder to sign up, I will also lose genuine users.

Yeah it's a conundrum to be in, do you know if it's the same person making multiple accounts? Do you IP ban them? Maybe limit them to a certain amount until they hit 100 posts. Maybe 10-20 posts a day max?

 

[Kane]

I can of course set higher limit for automatic approval but this will also deter genuine posters. I can have spammers on my forums as I can delete them whenever I want but I do not want to lose any users who genuinely use my forums.

 

[Jason]

New users have to figure out a word that has been spelled out backwards and, on top of that, the built-in anti-spam feature on XenForo blocks out a huge number of addresses, so in that case, I literally have no spam problem, unless I choose to approve people from the anti-spam feature.

 

[Kane]

New users have to figure out a word that has been spelled out backwards and, on top of that, the built-in anti-spam feature on XenForo blocks out a huge number of addresses, so in that case, I literally have no spam problem, unless I choose to approve people from the anti-spam feature.

I am using open source and one of the major issues is finding add ons for spam control, even if you find add ons these are not actively maintained by the developer thus making impossible to upgrade or update.

 

[Jason]

I am using open source and one of the major issues is finding add ons for spam control, even if you find add ons these are not actively maintained by the developer thus making impossible to upgrade or update.

Maybe your user registration is not blocking them effectively. Have you tried making new people answer hard questions? For instance, you might need to ask what a word backward is. For instance, "What is word spelled backward?". The answer is drow.

 

[Kane]

Maybe your user registration is not blocking them effectively. Have you tried making new people answer hard questions? For instance, you might need to ask what a word backward is. For instance, "What is word spelled backward?". The answer is drow.

I did try that on SMF but it did not help much. Spammers can also be intelligent humans, so they might be able to answer questions. A lot of spam control measures are only targeted towards people with low intelligence or bots.

 

[Jason]

I did try that on SMF but it did not help much. Spammers can also be intelligent humans, so they might be able to answer questions. A lot of spam control measures are only targeted towards people with low intelligence or bots.

That's strange. It worked for me. I might need to do an experiment on some forum software, aside from XenForo. Do you feel XenForo keeps out spam better? I think it does. In fact, spam only comes on when I approve people from the free spam prevention mod on it.

 

[Kane]

That's strange. It worked for me. I might need to do an experiment on some forum software, aside from XenForo. Do you feel XenForo keeps out spam better? I think it does. In fact, spam only comes on when I approve people from the free spam prevention mod on it.

I have moderator access on multiple Xenofo sites and based on my experience I think Xenoforo does pretty decent job when it comes to controlling spam. But I guess this also depends on what mods the admin is using on the site.

 

[saoussen57651]

Of late I have been receiving a lot of spammers on my forums. Deleting hundreds of spam posts and banning spammers everyday is giving headaches. Have you ever received a lot of spam posts on your communities, how did you handle it. Is there a simple yet effective way to stop spam in your forum?

You need to create a group called Advertiser. So most of these posters are just people that comes to advertise they will have only possibility to post on Users Advertisement section. This will not affect other threads.

 

[Jason]

You need to create a group called Advertiser. So most of these posters are just people that comes to advertise they will have only possibility to post on Users Advertisement section. This will not affect other threads.

I'm guessing these guys on there are spambots. Anyway, they have no intention by playing by any rules.

 

[saoussen57651]

I'm guessing these guys on there are spambots. Anyway, they have no intention by playing by any rules.

Did you mean google bot news and alternatives. Some forums allows them but restrict the contribution on just one section to avoid them bullishing the forum.

 

[Riberet19]

I think the best thing is to hire competent moderators, spam reaches everywhere, today I cleaned the Bizdustry tray full of spam, this is normal, but if there are no moderators, it is more difficult.

 

[Kane]

You need to create a group called Advertiser. So most of these posters are just people that comes to advertise they will have only possibility to post on Users Advertisement section. This will not affect other threads.

These are not actually advertisers, these are people who wants to post phishing links or links to porn site.

I think the best thing is to hire competent moderators, spam reaches everywhere, today I cleaned the Bizdustry tray full of spam, this is normal, but if there are no moderators, it is more difficult.

Agreed but the major problem for small forum owners is not having enough resources for hiring a moderator.

 

[Riberet19]

These are not actually advertisers, these are people who wants to post phishing links or links to porn site.

Agreed but the major problem for small forum owners is not having enough resources for hiring a moderator.

I understand, well sometimes there are some users who will be willing to be moderator for free, maybe some hoping to grow the site and make money from it.

 

[Kane]

I understand, well sometimes there are some users who will be willing to be moderator for free, maybe some hoping to grow the site and make money from it.

I know a lot of people are willing to work for free but when you are not paying them you cannot expect loyal service. For example, Referral Index is not paying to moderators, most moderators are not active on the site, and some of the moderators are republishing the same content across multiple sites