Spam Protection?

Archived EcoBurma ● ago

Sorry, could not find that question in your forum.

Which possibilities do I have to prevent spammers (bots and manual) from registering? We once ran another forum software and had good experience checking requests against services like http://www.stopforumspam.com . Do you support their api, or can I add it without risking to lose the changes with the next update?

Captchas, hidden fields etc. did not help that much.

Thanks!

Best Answer

Stas K. ●

We have specific rules in the system to prevent spam:

Registration is made in pop-up, and validated + it's not automatic, so that bots much likely won't be able to register tons of accounts. If any extra field is required, you can add it in code at System module Auth Controller. For the past 8 months noone experienced any problems with that;
Anonymous posts - optionally contain captcha that can be switched on at Administration -> Settings. This will be a barrier for any bot script;
Adding Responses, Comments - users other than Admins or Official Representatives can't add more than 1 object at a minute;
Moderation - with that module in corporate package you can switch on pre-moderation under Administration->Settings so you'll be able to pre-moderate any post or comment (optional). Also you get links next to topic and comments for others to report spam or abuse

It's pretty much like this. As I've mentioned, we didn't experience any problems with any automatic action in any community. Though, extra precautions could be done on your end by extended auth, responses controllers or writing module with API connection to any spam protection service, as system is modular.

Replies (4)

Stas K. ● ●

We have specific rules in the system to prevent spam:

Registration is made in pop-up, and validated + it's not automatic, so that bots much likely won't be able to register tons of accounts. If any extra field is required, you can add it in code at System module Auth Controller. For the past 8 months noone experienced any problems with that;
Anonymous posts - optionally contain captcha that can be switched on at Administration -> Settings. This will be a barrier for any bot script;
Adding Responses, Comments - users other than Admins or Official Representatives can't add more than 1 object at a minute;
Moderation - with that module in corporate package you can switch on pre-moderation under Administration->Settings so you'll be able to pre-moderate any post or comment (optional). Also you get links next to topic and comments for others to report spam or abuse

Notes f. ●

FYI, a few dozen new accounts are created daily on our instance by unknown bot(s). Non-existing email addresses like gj65725kmo@hotmail.com are used. So, bots are able to register lots of accounts.

Stas K. ●

Hello,

We are aware of that problem that we were experience on our own. We have already covered in 2.3.1 Corporate Package.

We'll try to implement it in Free one shortly

Stas K. ●

2.0.2 Free version is live with that hot fix. All Details are in announcement