Free-Forums.org Support

[DigimonOverlord]

What exactly is the point of requiring new users to enter that code that supposedly only people can decipher when they register (supposedly to keep computer programs from signing up for forums) if bots can still somehow miraculously sign up for my forum?? I am deleting 1-2 porn bots per day. I've tried to take every precaution by requiring admin account activiation and such, but I also had porn bots posting as guests. I've had to restrict the posting on all my forums and threads to registered users only just to keep them clean. Is there anything at all I can do about these stupid bots signing up? Can I just turn off account registration some how? I don't want anyone else signing up for my site anyway, so that would be an ideal solution.

I would also like to know why free forums seems to be having trouble with this. A friend of mine has a site on forumer.com and he has never had a bot register nor any porn spam posted. It too is a free site. What is the difference?

((PS and before anyone jumps to conclusions, I do not visit porn sites and I do not have any porn on my computer, so no, that is not where all the bots are coming from.))

[Darklord]

That happened to me, too. I was advertising my site like crazy all over the net, and then porn bots and some medicine geeks were posting about porn and tylenol. o.0

[Nil]

Ah, yes, this thing.

All new users to my forum need Admin approval, and Admin = me. It started out with a spam user every now and then, but it kept increasing. Now days, I get anywhere between 3 and 7 spam users every day. The emails asking for account activation are almost equal to the amount of normal mail I get.

I've set up a filter and a label for the new users, so all the activation email are auto-archived and labeled, but I now have 436 emails asking for my approval. Those are spam users.

I'm not sure how to deal with this all. Hand-deleting 436 users seems a bit much, and deleting an average of 5 new users a day is untenable.

That said, requiring Admin approval for new members posting stops all spam posts, and a filter can get rid of the resulting multitudes of emails.


On the bright side, my forum has a membership of 444. (That's me, my puppet account, six friends, and 436 bots.)

[xavierinc]

You need to have a better CAPTCHA installed on your forum because I think most of the spam/porn bots have figured out the old one some how. I have installed the Better CAPTCHA mod in my forum hosting service and it's working fantastic.

[DigimonOverlord]

unless freeforums is going to provide this for free, i do not have the luxury of buying a better screening program. i get what they give.

[Nil]

Yeah - I found a mod that allows Admins to easily mass delete users, but I couldn't install it on my forum. A better CAPTCHA for all the free-forums.org forums would be nice.

[captkirk]

What exactly is the point of requiring new users to enter that code that supposedly only people can decipher when they register (supposedly to keep computer programs from signing up for forums) if bots can still somehow miraculously sign up for my forum??

Why do assume that it's porn bots joining your forum?

Frankly, I assume that it's "REAL" people that's signing up and posting porn.

Yes, I have the same concerns with members posting porn, but I don't blame porn bots.

Anyway, Why do assume that it's porn bots joining your forum instead of "REAL" members?

[captkirk]

Yeah - I found a mod that allows Admins to easily mass delete users, but I couldn't install it on my forum. A better CAPTCHA for all the free-forums.org forums would be nice.

It would be nice to have a feature that would allow the Admins to mass delete users and their post.

[Nil]

Why do assume that it's porn bots joining your forum?

Frankly, I assume that it's "REAL" people that's signing up and posting porn.

Yes, I have the same concerns with members posting porn, but I don't blame porn bots.

Anyway, Why do assume that it's porn bots joining your forum instead of "REAL" members?

My forum is a little place for my friends. Every new user has to be approved by me before their account activates. There are seventeen real people on my forum.

There also are (currently) 619 other members who have registered on my forum. If they were human, I might think that they would follow the instructions to email me, so I know who the friend behind the user is. Or at least they wouldn't take the effort to register, seeing as I state that the forum is really just for me and my friends, and is locked and largely non-visible to everyone else.




For all practical purposes, they are bots. They sign up with minimal info, just a name, a email address, and a website, then if they aren't blocked, post pre=constructed messages linking to porn.


Oh and besides, computer and computer based methods can solve CAPTCHAs with higher accuracy than humans, these days. (wiki?)

I would go for a Q & A verification, personally. The admin sets up a question, or questions, and the bots can't figure out "What color do you get when you mix blue and yellow?"

Maybe human labor could beat that, especially via high-traffic relay, but that would at least cut down on a large amount of bots, those that use pure image recognition software.

[support]

"What color do you get when you mix blue and yellow?"
. It is a very good ideea but most real people will not know this answer.

Some registered members are bots, and some are not. For example if we can block all registering bots (this is imposible), the problam remain. People make accounts and give data to the bots and they will continue to post. It is imposible to make spam free forum.
Anyway, a better CAPTCHA will be good, maybe in future I will find a CAPTCHA system that I will like. I saw one that I liked with a moving thing but I forgot where . Allmost every CAPTCHA can be passed without many problems !