An Idea to stop spam..
 

Why not make new accounts have to wait say 2 weeks before they can post links and/or text url's in their posts?

Would stop most of the quick sign uppers to spam about nike shoes, or some conversion utility, or clothes, or viagra or....

I came up with this idea ages ago. ;) I think Empire's reaction back then was kind of: it would result in newbies being unable to ask their questions right away and punishing a lot of benevolent people because of a few malevolent ones is unfair - at least, that's how (I think) I understood it.

Yeah but newbies wouldnt be posting much links, they would be able to see links from other users.

But the spam has been getting a bit much lately.

True, true. How about uploading screenshots to show (error) messages? They're quite rare, though...

Also how about links disguised as something else like "visit us at hxxp://sta.c64.org" or "visit us at sta (dot) c64 (dot) org" or "E-mail us at sta (at) c64 (dot) org"? Yes, these are rare, too, as spammers are not smart enough... :p

A new idea...

Why not make people with less than 50 posts when posting url's have their posts checked first by mod's before posting is allowed?

Will annoy the spammers :P

totally agree there, worked on daemon tools forum...
> 20 posts = ok, until then each post must be moderated / approved
bit of extra work for the mods, but the amount of work in having to purge the crap is probably equal (if not more)..

Fine for me. Empire?

Lately we had huge spam problems on cd-2-dvd.com, i found this script that basically irradicated ALL spam, stupid as it may be, got rid of the bots, it´s a simple page when registering and posting that asks "Are you human?", bots don´t know how to fill it in, real people just have to reply yes and it goes on as usual, if you want, Empire, i can send it to you.

At criticalmass.hu, there's a question "how much is X + Y?", with varying X and Y, you have to calculate the sum manually and enter it into an input field. Also very simple but not as simple as a question with a static good answer.

I've looked for the moderated posting but this is not a default option within vB (most likely it can be done with an plugin, I've to check)
The only problem I got with moderating posts is that you give yourself A LOT of extra work checking these posts as only about 1% will be spam, is that worth the effort as most spam is removed & an ip ban is added

The current implemented "Image Verification" should stop most bots but it is something that already been defeated by some of them (as they get in)

The "human" check is a good idea as it will stop the bots, but this will not stop the new trend of having actual people behind the screen who get paid to spam forums & forms. And this will also be defeated in no time...

I will check for some more plugins for vB

@ Luciel: I think you are not using vB so this script will not work as I only use the official plugin model else updating vB will be quite hard to manage

Yes, I think it's worth the effort if it is enabled only for users with less than X posts. Anyway, let's try it - if it's possible with the current board software and configuration - for a week or so and we'll see...

@ Empire

You´re right i use phpbb but it doesn´t matter it´s a generic php script, all you have to figure out is where to add the required 2 lines (on phpbb it was at the top of one file and that was it), i dunno, can´t hurt to have a look?, pm me your e-mail addie and i will send it to you if you want.

I did not find a post moderation plugin with a selectable post number

But I installed another plugin which uses Stop Forum Spam. When a new user registers his ip or email is tested against the database @ stopforumspam.com and rejected when it exists

It's active now but I did not check it yet...

It is working:

goox 2009-09-25 18:55:30 joannakp9+Vek********com 204.124.182.36 Result on field ip - 204.124.182.36 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Abuperughese 2009-09-25 18:34:46 [email protected] 194.8.75.145 Result on field ip - 194.8.75.145 - Spammer and rejected by policy
AttessTum 2009-09-25 18:33:24 aliciamorein67198********com 195.2.240.205 Result on field ip - 195.2.240.205 - Spammer and rejected by policy
pypeinjelty 2009-09-25 18:16:50 jupimim32********com 94.253.252.35 Result on field email - jupimim32********com - Spammer and rejected by policy
alaxambigidge 2009-09-25 18:09:53 [email protected] 212.95.54.235 Result on field ip - 212.95.54.235 - Spammer and rejected by policy
rekUnfafe 2009-09-25 18:05:57 [email protected] 212.95.54.235 Result on field ip - 212.95.54.235 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Spesetejera 2009-09-25 17:58:58 [email protected] 212.235.107.36 Result on field ip - 212.235.107.36 - Spammer and rejected by policy
usenlyskecy 2009-09-25 17:31:35 [email protected] 89.178.49.55 Result on field email - [email protected] - Spammer and rejected by policy
ElereeDehatty 2009-09-25 17:32:56 [email protected] 24.99.44.37 Result on field email - [email protected] - Spammer and rejected by policy
Abuperughese 2009-09-25 17:09:02 [email protected] 194.8.75.145 Result on field ip - 194.8.75.145 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Abuperughese 2009-09-25 17:01:57 [email protected] 194.8.75.145 Result on field ip - 194.8.75.145 - Spammer and rejected by policy
tereethibia 2009-09-25 16:47:34 bronskislov12********com 89.248.172.98 Result on field ip - 89.248.172.98 - Spammer and rejected by policy
Plerplaurse 2009-09-25 16:40:55 [email protected] 217.77.54.162 Result on field ip - 217.77.54.162 - Spammer and rejected by policy

And this is just the last few hours...

niiiiiice :)

Kill 'em all, let god sort 'em out!

lovely :)

nice!

Just an update

The stopforumspam.com plugin is working better than expected, 2 out 3 registrations is currently being rejected because of spam activity!

It is possible to add spammer who still get in automatically to stopforumspam.com database but this is not working yet...

Yes, it would be nice if we could add "our" spammers to the plugin's central database, too, so that other forums also benefit from our manual filtering.