Hey guys,
Im getting spammed like no other with all this nasty ad stuff. Anything that I can do?
Quote from: mrconfident on April 29, 2009, 07:39:37 PM
Hey guys,
Im getting spammed like no other with all this nasty ad stuff. Anything that I can do?
of course my forum is in its infancy stages, but i have it setup for guest posting and registered users. i get about four spams a week.
whenever i see the ip or isp for a poster, you can normally tell, if its spam. If its not a normal 'hotmail, yahoo, etc email' its normally spam.
so i ban the ip and replace the last 2 - 3 digits with an *
this way your not banning an entire host/isp but stay within the range of the user thats spamming you.
Maybe this will help you?
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=307510.0
I have no problems with spam after installing 'are u human' mod...
Quote from: Dzonny on April 30, 2009, 11:38:47 AM
Maybe this will help you?
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=307510.0
I have no problems with spam after installing 'are u human' mod...
Same here, works great!
ok I installed it now my forum doesnt work. this is what the page says? Advice?
Template Parse Error!
There was a problem loading the /Themes/default/languages/Modifications.english-utf8.php template or language file. Please check the syntax and try again - remember, single quotes (') often have to be escaped with a slash (\). To see more specific error information from PHP, try accessing the file directly.
You may want to try to refresh this page or use the default theme.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '<' in .../Themes/default/languages/Modifications.english-utf8.php on line 5
1: <?php
2: // Version: 1.1; Modifications
3:
4:
5: <add>6: // Are You Human?
7: $txt['are_you_human_q1'] = 'Are You Human?';
8: $txt['are_you_human_q2'] = 'Are You Bot?';
9: $txt['are_you_human_desc'] = 'Another Anti-Bot Measure';
Yep same issue on my site. The mod doesn't work, but type in "spam" into the mod search box and select any one of the countless spambot preventions.
the are you human mod works great when installed properly, i run it as well.
I am pretty sure that there is a big network of people who are manually spamming forums, where CAPTCHAs and the like won't work, because there are actual people doing the work. I suspect that the no-follow mod: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1236 would eventually get your site off the list of target sites to spam, but it doesn't do much in the short term.
Quote from: confusion on May 07, 2009, 01:01:43 PM
I am pretty sure that there is a big network of people who are manually spamming forums, where CAPTCHAs and the like won't work, because there are actual people doing the work. I suspect that the no-follow mod: http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1236 would eventually get your site off the list of target sites to spam, but it doesn't do much in the short term.
There are services that will spam for you. They hire actual people to go around spamming websites.
It's impossible to prevent that from happening but it's way more satisfying to stop them.
I think the best way to prevent this, other than the stop forum spam mod (which I have big reservations about), is to make my forum unattractive to link spammers. People who pay to spam their links don't want to pay for a no-follow link.
I have seen other forums that require a person to have 2 or more posts before being allowed to post a link. That would work also, but someone would have to come up with a mod to do it.
Quote from: confusion on May 08, 2009, 07:14:48 AM
I think the best way to prevent this, other than the stop forum spam mod (which I have big reservations about), is to make my forum unattractive to link spammers. People who pay to spam their links don't want to pay for a no-follow link.
I have seen other forums that require a person to have 2 or more posts before being allowed to post a link. That would work also, but someone would have to come up with a mod to do it.
What's the "no-follow" link thing you're talking about. Also, what's so bad about anti-bot mods? We installed one and as soon as we did we went from 2-5 new spam bots per day to zero.
Quote from: Spektral on May 08, 2009, 05:58:45 PM
What's the "no-follow" link thing you're talking about. Also, what's so bad about anti-bot mods? We installed one and as soon as we did we went from 2-5 new spam bots per day to zero.
No-follow is a tag that is added to href links - it's totally transparent to visitors. Links that specify "rel=nofollow" instruct the major search engines to essentially disregard the link. Without the rel=nofollow tag, the appearance of a link on a site is interpreted as a "vote" for the relevance of that link, and will help the linked site move higher up in search results. Higher up in search results means more visitors to the site. More visitors to the site means more money.
While a forum is obscure (from the perspective of search engines), it will mostly be targeted by bots. The bots find it by searching google for the "powered by smf" string, etc. The anti-bot mods do pretty well against those things, though the bots are getting a lot more sophisticated, since there is quite a bit of money to be made if you can create a bot that can circumvent those anti-bot mods.
But, once your forum becomes authoritative - high PR, high up in search engine results, etc, your forum becomes quite valuable to link spammers, who will opt to pay people to register on forums, get through the CAPTCHAs, anti-bot mods, etc, and drop some links on the forum. That's where I'm at with my forum. I don't have a particularly busy forum, but it is pretty authoritative and hence valuable to spammers.
However, link spammers don't want to pay to spam a site that won't benefit them. So, setting links in posts to use the nofollow tag will help to make a forum unattractive to manual spammers.
The concern I have about the stop forum spam mod is that it relies on another site. I am not certain, but I got the feeling that if the SFS site is down or slow, then sites running the mod start having trouble (maybe someone can correct/confirm?)
Modifications like Stop Spammer (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1547) and Anti-Bot: Are You Human/Bot? (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=999) and reCAPTCHA for SMF (http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1044) will greatly reduce spam and spam registrations on your site.
I was starting to get quite a lot of spam, and fake members... I upped the captcha settings to a higher security and made it so guests couldnt view the profile (both were recommended by others on here) and havent had a problem since. I also banned one specific IP address and all mail.ru email address domains. No problems since.
Good luck! :D
I dont know how ya'll get spammers like crazy.
Ive been using SMF for 3 yrs now. I have over 900 members and theyre all humans. Not a single spam or spammers/bots ever in my forum.
The mods i have installed.
-Recaptcha
-Profile fields
-avatar select
I think bots dont know how to select from a drop down menu and select and avatar. If they cant do that,then they cant register.
http://www.chevyavalancheclub.com/index.php?action=register
ya, I used to get spam, but then i found the are you human mod.
Set up a mod where it asks simple questions before they register.
Then, you can setup your forum with immediate registration. Members will appreciate this! :)
Hope that helps...
if you need an example, http://swampratracing.com/forum/index.php?action=register (http://swampratracing.com/forum/index.php?action=register)