anyone have any tips to prevent forum spam?

[Shemo]

been noticing a large influx of forum spammers.  I have a few anti-spam plugins installed (registration security question, stop forum spam, & hide sigs and websites of new users) and while it seems to combat a fair amount of spam, I'm seeing more and more slip by.

any suggestions?  anything I can implement?

[techu]

Now a days the main problems are human spammers. I just ban their ip address..

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

Registration security question is generally easy for bots to bypass.  The only thing it protects against is very generic bots.
I've looked at Stop forum spam, but all it does it check username+email+IP against a database, which is questionable in how good that approach is.  For one, usernames are very easy to generate.  Secondly, whether you trust an external service is you call...
Hide sigs and websites doesn't prevent spam - it just tries to make sig link spammers less "ugly" on your board.

I'm working on an experimental plugin, however, it doesn't try to stop all spam, just lessen the impact slightly.  Have you tried Akismet?  Again, it relies on a 3rd party, so it's up to you whether you trust it or not.

[Shemo]

(04-25-2011 06:45 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  Registration security question is generally easy for bots to bypass.  The only thing it protects against is very generic bots.
I've looked at Stop forum spam, but all it does it check username+email+IP against a database, which is questionable in how good that approach is.  For one, usernames are very easy to generate.  Secondly, whether you trust an external service is you call...
Hide sigs and websites doesn't prevent spam - it just tries to make sig link spammers less "ugly" on your board.

I'm working on an experimental plugin, however, it doesn't try to stop all spam, just lessen the impact slightly.  Have you tried Akismet?  Again, it relies on a 3rd party, so it's up to you whether you trust it or not.

I haven't in a while.  after it was banning legitimate forum users, I turned it off.

[RateU]

(04-25-2011 06:45 PM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  I'm working on an experimental plugin, however, it doesn't try to stop all spam, just lessen the impact slightly.

It seems that the plugin works, Yumi.
Does it support if the spammer edit their post later?

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

Yes, it'll be able to detect post edits and respond accordingly.
Thanks.

[Shemo]

(05-11-2011 08:59 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  Yes, it'll be able to detect post edits and respond accordingly.
Thanks.

let us know when you need some testers because I'd definitely be interested.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

There's no guarantee I'll ever release it.
I generally only make plugins for myself these days.  Some may get released, most won't.

[RateU]

(05-11-2011 08:59 AM)ZiNgA BuRgA Wrote:  Yes, it'll be able to detect post edits and respond accordingly.

Wow, Great! So, we don't need to worry about the clever spammer any more.

I don't know what do you think about this, Yumi:

Automatically unapproved the spam post/thread.

It seems that your "algorithm" (I don't know how to say it ) works and 100% accurate to detect a spam post/thread (at least in this forum). So, I think it is better if the plugin unapproved the spam post/thread automatically when the spammer submit/edit their thread/post. So, the post/thread won't be visible for search engine and/or regular users, if there is no moderators or admin logged in at that time. Later, when there is a moderator or admin log in, they can review the post/thread.

[ZiNgA BuRgA]

Thanks for the compliment, but it's definitely not 100% accurate, or anywhere near really.
There isn't too much spam on these forums, possibly because I've blocked most Indian IPs from registering here, so there's only really a small sample, but on my main forum, it's failed to detect some, and has falsely detected legitimate posts.
This is primarily a link analysis tool, so it mainly flags posts containing lots of links.  The more conservative spammers, only putting in one link (or those that don't put in any) generally won't be picked up by this plugin.
It's not designed to pick up all spam, just make it slightly easier for the moderators by stopping the aggressive spammers.  Primarily, this tool assumes that the forum is being moderated well already.

The plugin can automatically unapprove threads/posts suspected of spam, but it's disabled by default and I won't enable it.  I prefer blocking the post itself, as it tells the user why the system doesn't like it.