Need help with a forum

Thor

Thor

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Okey so when I'm not working and stuff, I have another hobby, Bodybuilding and I created a forum few weeks ago, but now my question for some reason I get bombarded by Russian and Ukrainian spammers.


I don't know what to do ?
 
It's a fitness related forum just in case that was unclear.
 
Swa said:
Remove all spam links.
Click to expand...

I do.

But I get member sign ups, but those members appear to be bots, names like :

Ghfrghhry
Uyjghvgff
Hftkgjjgjjj
Gongjjyfs
Bobftjdfhb
Jackyhggb

And then next moment whole forum is flooded with russian articles.

Here is a url to the forum if that might help.

http://muscletalk.co.za

The forum is hosted on phpMybb
 
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I've seen new forums fall under the radar of spammers. Don't know how or why that happens. Users then click on links sending referrer information. Nothing you can do about that since it's under browser control. If you prevent new users from creating links/sigs and delete all obvious spam accounts it should eventually dissipate though.
 
When you register on MyBB, you're asked to answer a question before you can complete registration. I remember that MyBB instituted this to prevent bots from registering. So set up a question/answer which only your target market would know the answer to. It needs to be easy and obvious.

Alternatively, you might want to look at plugins for your forum that require a Captcha to be answered and verifies email addresses during the registration process. If you want to take things even further, you might want to considering restricting the IP ranges of visitors to those only from South Africa. This would obviously only apply to your registration page, as you'd still want your forum accessible (i.e. readable) to anyone and everyone.

What you're experiencing is a problem on most forums from around the world. There are already solutions out there, you've just got to find them.
 
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@saajid I had the question answer thing that was bad had about 300-370 new bots a day.

Then I had the double verification by confirming with email still had no affect (smart bots those Russians)

Now i registered on google for that reCapcha thing *touches wood* it seems to have a positive effect so far

I blocked .cn .ru domains.

I should change this thread name to "Nicht Comrade, You sneaky Russian bear."
 
Judging by what you have said about the forum and who will be using it... Why not make it so that you have to manually approve each account?

That generally works out well for smaller ones (can be a bit troublesome in that people want to make a post... They must wait a day before u accept their account, they might not come back).

Spammers generally don't even bother when they see this type of account maintenance.
 
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At sign-up include a combination of captach/re-captcha, human question and a hidden honeypot input field. You don't have to use all of them but the more you use the better spam protection you'll get. You need to find the balance between annoying your users at signup or annoying them with spam. Spam will still get through, you'll just have to deal with it though.
 
I had it in manual but that is not a option it ia not lekker to siff through 300-370 sign ups a day just to identify potentially 1 legit human amongst skynet's demons.
 
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I tried having maybe two authentication methods, but appears phpmyBB only allows for 1 at a time.
 
I have seen several forums only allow you to post in one semi-obscure topic for the first 10 or so posts.

Perhaps try that?
 
Yah sorry bud, I can see that being a mission in such a case... Don't really have experience with phpmyBB but in general if you can pinpoint where the bulk of it is coming from you could as you said try to deny as much as possible. Would be best to look at plugins though if already available and i could see that becoming quite a task (doing it yourself) if you have no understanding of what is involved or real access to the server.

AstroTurf has a good point too...

Seems like you're not exactly gifted with a lot of choice but I agree with what is said here... Cant think of much else (this is a problem that relates to the web in general not just forums... Alot of unwanted traffic and such):

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/mod/advanced_block_mod/faq/f_548
 
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Yea, well thanks for all the advice I'm glad to know it's not my forum in particular that's the problem.

On another note can I spin this unfortunate event into profit by using google ads? Since those sneaky Russian and Chinese spammers gets me a constant 800-1490 views per day?
 
Not worth risking your legitimate visitors falling prey to a scam...

It's solvable but as someone else above said, its a balance and it would be more worth your while in the long term to just annoy your potential visitors... If they are REALLY interested (people you want on your forums indeed) then they won't care about filling out 3 text captchas and 1 audio one at all :D
 
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Hahaha point taken.

Most fitness people are pretty persistent and driven so maybe I'll try and get a biometric authentication working with your S5
 
Thanks guys I applied all the advice and well *touch wood* it is working.
 
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