recent spammers

[New Ages]

We've recently had a large number of spammers popping up on our board all from two seemingly separate sites and we were wondering if there's any specific place to report this or if there's anyway we can keep them from plaguing our board?

The spammers are not from rpg boards, but rather kitchen stores. We've recorded the IP and email addresses but don't know how helpful that is.

We have seen spammers from both sites since this summer, though only periodically. Recently however they've popped onto our site more than a few times in the last week and we've deleted three of their accounts in just a day.

[AshFR]

Quick question, what do you mean by kitchen stores?

Are they posting links to kitchen stores?

Are they only posting links?

Or text - blue text?

They may be bots if that's the problem.

[New Ages]

One is kitchen designs southhampton the other kitchen design newcastle. They provide links and short descriptions including phone numbers and basic start up prices. The text is normal.

[moonbeam]

New Ages, I would ban the user name/ IP/ email associated with these posters, first of all. Second of all, you could put your forum on Limited Registration (found in the admin panel under general settings). This requires that all accounts be approved before they can post.

If you do that, you will see a link for Pending Accounts in your admin panel under Manage Members. It will only be there when you have a new member awaiting approval.

Doing so will give you opportunity to put their IP into a search engine and see where it comes from. I use whatismyipaddress.com. If it's from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Japan, etc., there's a really good chance they'll spam. I also check on stopforumspam.com. These are just things that can help cut down on spamming, but nothing is foolproof.

[New Ages]

We've been banning the ip addresses but it doesn't seem to be doing much. We've also been able to figure out the majority of these addresses have been coming from Indonesia, but we'll discuss setting up limited registration, though we've been dealing with these site spammers since this summer, it just hasn't been an overload of problems for us until recently.

Thank you for your suggestions

[Cen]

Our board is having this problem as well. I am about to block the first IP. The other day I just deleted them hoping they would get the hint but apparently it won't be that way. I would hate to shut down all the boards to non-members because some of them we would like people to be able to post on without registering.

[New Ages]

Our biggest problem with banning these ip addresses is new ones crop up, new accounts are created, and they post just before we get a chance to screen. Thankfully our mods have been on to immediately remove the information, but it is a nuisance.

We're also not fans of limiting registration for the same reasons though.

[moonbeam]

Oh yes.. Indonesia is one I see a lot on my board. Forgot about it when I posted, however. One other thing I do, since PB is supposed to be checking info somehow against data on stopforumspam.com, is report every single one of my potential spammers on that site. You have to create an account, but after that, you can add their user name, ip and email. The more we add, the fewer get through. It *is* a moving target, as you've said, but every little bit helps, the way I see it.

[lizzylobs]

We have this problem also ...I came here today to see if there was anything to be done, I shall register with the stopforumspam

[Former Member]

Had/having the same issue with that spammer posting kitchen spam and links
You could register and report the spam to www.stopforumspam.com
A good idea also is to block the links on your word censor
add the link in the left box and in the right box add Link Removed - Spam!

Steve

[New Ages]

we'll be registering and logging the ips and emails as well. Again, thank you moonbeam. Also, that's a wonderful idea to place the links on our word censor list, we didn't even think of that option. xD

[Willing Sniper]

I would check in the guests pop up in V4, and check IP addys of the guests. If it was from a suspect location or showed as a proxy I put it on the ban list.

It was especially convenient to check the 24 hours list, and click the guest link. I would love to have that option back.

[Proboard User]

Isn't there some way to just block a whole city or area? That would be nice. I highly doubt there is anyone in Pakistan who is going to be joining the sites I run. From what I've seen of sites like mine, you -might - get someone from Canada or England if you're lucky, but that's about the extent of the out of country attraction you're getting... so yeah, I wouldn't even mind blocking the whole country to prevent this spamming nonsense. I've got a better chance of winning the lottery than seeing a legitimate person from one of these spambot heavy countries showing up at one of the sites I run.

[Craig]

You can block IPs. If you know which IPs originate/go through from said city, then you can block that city if you block those IPs. But it will more than likely block people you don't want blocked if you do that.