3.8.4pl2 and Spam Registrations

[prisoner 24601]

I searched, but did not find an answer, so I'll post:

I have turned on reCaptcha, e-mail notification, e-mail address verification AND all accounts have to be approved by an Admin (me), but I still get spammers that register and they don't show up in "Users to Moderate" in the ACP. They just ... get registered.

Any ideas? If the answer to this has been posted before, please just post a link. Thanks!

[Homeworld'sa]

Try NoSpam and Cyb's Advanced Permission hacks to stop the spam. Then, do a search for spammer email domains and add the entire list you find to the banned emails list.

[Xtrigit]

The BEST solution is to turn reCaptcha off and use the Question & Answer Verification instead.

My forum is quite new, about 3 weeks old, 6,000 members, 0 spammers. When I first opened my forum, i used the Image and reCaptcha options but the spam bots would bypass it. After setting up the Question & Answer verification system, there haven't been anymore spammers. The question doesn't need to be hard at all, just a simple question like " How many hours are there in a week?" etc.

You should also put up a notice or something stating that you will not tolerate spammers.

Good luck!

[pokesph]

I think you are missing the point.. these spammers are bypassing the new user moderation and are able to post without being approved.

[Floris]

I've installed "stopvbforumspam" on 3.8.5
and i have no more spam posts. Only humans signing up manually and then enabling a bot. but then akismet takes care of those.

From the 250+ registrations in a day, 15 real users sign up, 5 of them are spam, and only 1 spam msg becomes public.

Thanks to that above plugin from vbulletin.org - the anti spam human verification options from vBulletin have proven since the last xrumer update to be completely useless.

[Xtrigit]

I think you are missing the point.. these spammers are bypassing the new user moderation and are able to post without being approved.

They are bypassing the new user moderation because they are being ALLOWED to register.

At our forum, we do not moderate new users. We let ANYONE who can PROVE that they're human, register.

For instance, if a bot wants to register at our forum, that bot has to answer a security question BEFORE being added to the member's list. No username is added if that bot fails.

When moderating new registrations, you are allowing them(spammers) to register and even if you don't aprove them, the username is already created (reserved) so no one else can choose that username.

I don't think I'm allowed to post a link to my site so p.m me to take a look at how we handle new registrations.

Of course there isn't much we can do about HUMAN Spammers, all we can do is ban them.

[prisoner 24601]

I think you are missing the point.. these spammers are bypassing the new user moderation and are able to post without being approved.

They are bypassing the new user moderation because they are being ALLOWED to register.

Pokesph is right: you're missing the point, folks. I have all these things turned on and the spammers still become registered. Remember: all new users have to be approved by me. I didn't/don't. They still get registered.

[Homeworld'sa]

do you have other admins that could approve members?
But, what you need is more hacks to stop them registering, like NoSpam! and cyb's advanced permission hack to prevent them posting links if they do register.

[prisoner 24601]

do you have other admins that could approve members?
But, what you need is more hacks to stop them registering, like NoSpam! and cyb's advanced permission hack to prevent them posting links if they do register.

Nope. I'm the only one that approves folks.

I understand about the hacks, but as I mention in the first post, I don't even get the opportunity to approve or deny the accounts, they just get registered. I'd like to know how/why. IMO, this might be something to do with how search 'bots "register" and index forums.

[Homeworld'sa]

I think you have a modification that just over-rides the moderation of users.

Disable all your plugins and find out what happens

[prisoner 24601]

I only have one mod. I have no problems giving it a shot, tho!