There really needs to be more options to help stop forum spam.

Here's a few of mine. If you have some ideas, please add them to the thread.

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Suggestion 1:

I'm thinking we need more solutions to deal with Anonymous Proxies. They have IP blocklists for other types of software. Is there a way to get a blocklist for anonymous proxies and have it update every day?

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Suggestion 2:

Also, another suggestion I have is to modify the bad word list to help combat spam

My suggestion here is to add another column on the Bad Word Filter list where a dropdown that gives you the option to Standard Filter or Block the Post.

Basically, the suggestion is to bring the blocklist feature of blocking urls and applying it to certain text.

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Suggestion 1:

I'm thinking we need more solutions to deal with Anonymous Proxies. They have IP blocklists for other types of software. Is there a way to get a blocklist for anonymous proxies and have it update every day?

It will never work, simply because proxies pop up too often, and proxys make money, they wont just sit around idly if they get blocked, they'll find a way to unblock themselves. If your ex-users are using proxies to harass you, you're treating them badly, and IMHO: Kind of deserve it... you have to be a pretty big jerk to get proxy users to bombard your site.

Try setting verification by admin. ;) Some sneaky bots have excellent OCR built in and this could help save you.
When you are alerted of a new registration, run the display name on google and see how many time it comes up.

I had SeLvesTr register on one of my site and I ran the name on google and got over 50,000 hits so I banned it right there.

If your ex-users are using proxies to harass you, you're treating them badly,

may want to re-read the topic title. "forum spam and bots" (Although the suggestions in this thread could help you with people harassing you)

A lot of forum spammers and blog comment spammers are using anonymous proxies. Free proxy lists, etc.

Try setting verification by admin.

great for boards with a small volume of registrations every day. Or someone with a ridiculous amount of time on their hands.

Not really practical for boards with a larger number of registrations every day like IPS forums, invisionize, neowin, etc.

I know many forums that have 100+ members active during any given time using admin verification and they seem to be getting along fine without any spam bots. Admin verification isn't just for "dead" or inactive forums. It's a very good way to verify the legitimacy of user accounts.

I know many forums that have 100+ members active during any given time

edited my post with the correct wording. i shouldn't have stated activity. Thanks for pointing out the error.

I've added a required custom profile field (favorite cheese) and switched up the capatcha fonts and haven't seen a piece of spam in months.

I know many forums that have 100+ members active during any given time using admin verification and they seem to be getting along fine without any spam bots. Admin verification isn't just for "dead" or inactive forums. It's a very good way to verify the legitimacy of user accounts.

If a forum has admin activation turn on, I usually ask them to remove my account as soon as I get the message, not worth my time as a user.

Not to mention, most places that are run by horrible admins have validation turned on for non-spambot reasons.


Possibly have someone custom-code something for the registration? Best way to prevent bots.

Not to mention, most places that are run by horrible admins have validation turned on for non-spambot reasons.

Then I am, happily, a horrible admin.

create a seprate registration page with some personal details in and break the one on the main site and put a 1 second redirect to the new reg page, it'll screw up a lot of bots.

Then I am, happily, a horrible admin.

"most" along the same like how "most" admins run free forum systems too.

I've added a required custom profile field (favorite cheese) and switched up the capatcha fonts and haven't seen a piece of spam in months.

I like this one the best!

By the way, I haven't noticed any SPAM here...

How do invisionpower.com keep these forums SPAM free? Is it just a massive amount of moderator man and woman power? Or do they have some other trick up their sleives?

Just curious!

We pretty much never get 'automated' spam bots. What little manual spam (i.e. human registers and posts the topic) we get is just deleted by moderators.

We pretty much never get 'automated' spam bots. What little manual spam (i.e. human registers and posts the topic) we get is just deleted by moderators.

So how do you stop the automated spam bots?

I am sure that 98% of the spam I get is from bots...

I recently had to simply disable track-backs on all of my IP blogs. I had a look at them and there wasn't one single legitimate track back amongst the lot. All spam. Not only that, most of them led to extremely dodgy sites...

I really like the idea of enabling guests to post but what kills it for me is the spam.

By the way, I know where you are coming from with moderators but I am running several websites as a one-man-band - and I just don't have that luxury

We have the GD2 style captcha enabled and do not allow guests to post. We don't do anything other than that - no custom registration fields, etc.

I have a fairly small forum, however it was targetted by spammers for a while.

My method, which so far has been sucessful against spambots was to introduce a spambot question whilt registering. I tried a purely text answer, which didn't work, I now use the date of birth backwards in the format nnnn-aaa-nn and since then I've had no spam problems. I had to turn of guest posting though.

Suggestion 2:

Also, another suggestion I have is to modify the bad word list to help combat spam

My suggestion here is to add another column on the Bad Word Filter list where a dropdown that gives you the option to Standard Filter or Block the Post.

Basically, the suggestion is to bring the blocklist feature of blocking urls and applying it to certain text.

Another twist on this suggestion is to automatically flag people on que when they try posting certain words. (Spam words that you added to the bad word filter.)

I think bots may not know how to log in using an email address so even if they manage to slip by the GD2 (which I have seen) and register they won't know how to sign in on the forums.

I think bots may not know how to log in using an email address so even if they manage to slip by the GD2 (which I have seen) and register they won't know how to sign in on the forums.

oh they know alrite :P.