Spam: Anyone Else?

[Midnight Modding]

Does anyone else have such a big problem with bots and spammer accounts to where it's unbearable, even with trying to combat it?

Maybe I am overlooking some things that can help, but it was so bad on one of my sites that I just turned the site offline and I am the only legit member on the site. lol. With me being the only real member, I noticed the ids for the member accounts are in the 9,000s. So that is how many spam accounts kept joining.

The biggest issue lately is also the Contact Us form. On one site I got so much spam from it, I disabled it. Well now on the site that I still had it enabled on, someone sent a message with inappropriate content.

I could disable it only for certain groups, but I am assuming much of the time guests are who would even use it. Plus the point of even having it, really, is for search engine optimization, so you about have to have it show to guests or treat search engines as another group...

[Millipede]

You might want to try this plugin, it works on the Contact form too:

 

[tonyv]

I just re-enabled registration, but I use admin approval. Had two undesireable users register this morning, but anyone whose email addresses look like this (or whose IP addresses come back to Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Khazakstan, etc.) I just ignore:

 

Oh, and I'm excited to report that I enabled post before registering, but the activity of ones like this I'll never see, becaue I'll just delete them in Validating at some point.

[Midnight Modding]

14 minutes ago, Millipede said:

You might want to try this plugin, it works on the Contact form too:

 

Thanks. Will check it out.

2 minutes ago, tonyv said:

I just re-enabled registration, but I use admin approval. Had two undesireable users register this morning, but anyone whose email addresses look like this (or whose IP addresses come back to Turkey, Egypt, Russia, Khazakstan, etc.) I just ignore:

 

On my main site I noticed in the past that most spam accounts were Russian. I need to look back at what I did on that one because at least the issue hasn't been as bad there (although I think I even have registrations disabled there...). I believe I do have admin validation enabled, which does suck to have to have them wait for approval, but it gets so abd there's not much choice. Well, plus my sites have been dead for years and years. But I am figuring this all out in case I move to a different url and start over.

[jackflash]

Add at least 25 anti-spam questions and install clean talk.

IPS needs to consider making their spam tool available, even when the license expires.

[Millipede]

With CleanTalk, you can block whole countries by creating a personal blacklist in your account.

https://cleantalk.org/help/blacklist-usage

I don't have any questions or captcha, and I don't have registrations set to approval, I just use CleanTalk (and have IPS's anti-spam enabled). I've only had no more than 2 or 3 human spammers register and tons blocked by CleanTalk.

 

[Millipede]

PS - I forgot to add that I do have a sort of questions: 2 profile fields that need to be entered on the registration form. This additionally helps us to judge they genuinely know what my forum is for (it's a bit "niche") as well as be part of their profile.

[Midnight Modding]

Thanks. Good suggestions. Also, I let my license lapse at times, so I am wondering when I was getting the most spam accounts... I "think" my license was active at the time, though.