Clean up the forums!

[danskmacabre]

There's spam here and there, specifically the DS forums, but other places too.

One spam post is advertising cracked games and stuff!!

[danskmacabre]

alternatively, make me an admin/moderator and I'll clean up this town pardner.

[HiddenAway]

Ahem!

[danskmacabre]

Oh yeah, didn't notice that! Sorry

Anyway, it would be nice if the admins here would notice either of our threads...

[HiddenAway]

I sent up an e-mail to the PG forum admins but they must not have noticed yet.

Unless it's an old address of course...

[Fraser]

Gentlemen, very sorry for the late reply, I was on holiday and while I was away a few spam gremlins got in and caused a ruckus. Should be sorted out now though and cheers for trying to bring it to my attention.

[HiddenAway]

There's still one in the DS section. I guess it was put in just a few moments ago.

[HiddenAway]

In fact, there's been another attack, this time in the PSP section.

I'm calling for account bans now...

[Fraser]

Yep it seems some dubious types are creating multiple accounts to do a job lot of spamming. I have gotten rid of the fresh rubbish for today and am now in the process of banning the offending accounts. Never fear, everything will be clean and tidy soon.

Thanks for the heads up again.

[danskmacabre]

Are you using visual verification for creation of User IDs?
As those posts look very botlike.

I have created a few websites/forums and I administrate a few as well.
I have found it catches nearly all bots and stuff.

[HiddenAway]

MODS!

We have infiltrators on the Mobile forum! Attack!

[Leulier]

You should upgrade your forums to phpBB3, the anti-spam works very well. I use phpBB3 on many websites and I have never seen a bot successfully post spam yet.

Back when I was using phpBB2, this is what fixed the automatic registration :

In the very beginning of profile.php :

Code: Select all

if ((isset($_GET['mode']) AND $_GET['mode'] == 'register') OR (isset($_POST['mode']) AND $_POST['mode'] == 'register'))
{
   header('Location: /registration.asp');
   die();
}

[HiddenAway]

We seriously need to put some safeguards in. It's getting to the point that someone innocently asking a question will result in spamathons. At this rate, I won't know who is friend or spammer anymore...

[danskmacabre]

Personally I use Simple machines forums. http://www.simplemachines.org/
It uses PHPand Mysql like PHPBB as well.

I have created several websites that use it and with visual verification set to medium, I get maybe 1 spam account registering a month.

Plus it's easier to maintain/mod SMF than PHPBB, SMF is also less well known than PHPBB, so is less prone to attacks etc.

Just my 2 cents worth, I have used PHPBB as well it's nice enough, so I'm not trying to kick off a PHPBB vs SMF duel

[HiddenAway]

More spammarghs in the PSP forum.

*sigh*