vBulletin and preventing spam

[Pippa Mattinson]

Hi

My organisation - The Gundog Club (UK) currently runs a support forum using phpbb. We are plagued with spam registrations mostly from pornographic websites. Although we are now able to prevent the spammers actually posting, the time spent/wasted removing them from our memberlist is threatening the future of the forum (we removed and banned several hundred spam members over Christmas). It has been suggested to me that we would have a more secure and manageable forum with vbulletin.

I would be most grateful if you could advise us on the pros and cons of switching to vbulletin, especially with regard to this problem. I would also appreciate advice on preserving or switching posts/threads on our existing forum.

With many thanks

Pippa Mattinson

[Steve Machol]

Please see this thread for all the methods available in vB to combat spam:

"How to Reduce Spam and Registration Bots"
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=211647

[RichM]

Hi

My organisation - The Gundog Club (UK) currently runs a support forum using phpbb. We are plagued with spam registrations mostly from pornographic websites. Although we are now able to prevent the spammers actually posting, the time spent/wasted removing them from our memberlist is threatening the future of the forum (we removed and banned several hundred spam members over Christmas). It has been suggested to me that we would have a more secure and manageable forum with vbulletin.

I would be most grateful if you could advise us on the pros and cons of switching to vbulletin, especially with regard to this problem. I would also appreciate advice on preserving or switching posts/threads on our existing forum.

With many thanks

Pippa Mattinson

In addition to the information provided in the thread that Steve Machol linked to, vBulletin also has more spam prevention features in vBulletin 3.7. This new version of vBulletin is expected for release in the coming months. However, a beta version is available to the public at this present time.

You can read more about the new spam prevention features by clicking on the following link:
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1450778&postcount=16

The reCAPTCHA feature is very useful and achieves its objective unlike spam prevention features found on other forum software. vBulletin is one of the first to implement this into its forum software AFAIK.

Hope that helps. :)

- RichM

[Wayne Luke]

However, a beta version is available to the public at this present time.

To clarify, the beta is available to existing customers. It is not available to the general public.

[davide101]

I simply use a basic captcha and have never had a Spambot registration in over 2 years of running a forum. It's been a constant problem on my Movable Type installation on the same site.

[boogie box high]

I simply use a basic captcha and have never had a Spambot registration in over 2 years of running a forum.


Never? :eek: I had enough spammer registration on my boards (vb 3.6) from December 2006 till summer of 2007 - I have deleted almost 1.000 accounts in that time! Thats why I started to moderate all new users :( and it took really much time :(
but then I found glorious NoSpam! hack on vbulletin.org since then I never had a spammer on my forums.
Unfortunately I have uninstalled this hack because I found out that vb3.7. contains "Question and Answer Verification" (almost the same like NoSpam! hack) function and its running w/o any problems on my live forums till yet.

[davide101]

I currently use a Security Question with Movable Type and that has limited the registrations to the non-automated type. I think the inclusion of that is a big step forward.

[Pippa Mattinson]

Hi

Thank you for your replies.

I have had a look at the threads that you link to, and most of the features described are available in some form on my current forums. Apart from active user moderation by our staff, all the other systems seem designed to prevent bots from signing up. In this respect they do seem to work, BUT....

Our hundreds of users are almost all real people - or perhaps incredibly clever bots - capable of getting through our image recognition test. What we need is help stopping these people, without the mind numbing, time consuming, task of going through each registration by hand and deleting the spam. (Which is most of them!)

Would v bulletin give us the option to ban certain words or combinations of letters in any/all of the following places... usernames, emails, signatures, thread titles, or posts?

Is there any other way that vbulletin can help prevent spam registration by people, rather than bots?

Thank you again for your help!

Pippa

[Jobe1986]

vBulletin has a built in censor that covers at least signatures, posts and thread titles, im not sure if it covers user names too. There is also a feature to ban portions of email addresses from being used too.

As for registrations getting through captcha, phpBB is known for how easy it is for automated bots to crack it's captcha. vBulletin's captcha on the other hand, when set up with the right options is pretty damn perfect for the job.

[Mez]

Hi Pippa!

As Steve mentioned, vBulletin has features that prevent Spam Registrations, and spam bots, and 3.7 (available to customers only to use at the moment unfortunately) provides more features for managing spam.

I've had a quick look at your board, and noticed that the Registration "captcha" (Human Verification) is pretty basic. This may be a configuration issue, or a limitation of the software you're using, I'm unsure. However, vBulletin does provide a high-quality system for preventing spam, which is easily configurable to suit your needs. and as mentioned, the latest version (currently in Beta), 3.7, provides more support for managing spam

Advanced Human Verification (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1450778&postcount=16)
Inline Spam Moderation (http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1450764&postcount=2)

Also, regarding your censorship Question: you can find information regarding that here

Censorship Options (http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/vboptions_group_censor)

Obviously, some spam will get through, as it will anywhere. People will come along, register and post spam, however, with the correct settings, this can be minimised. and with the right tools (as provided by vBulletin) managing spam can be easy.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Say hi to Jeff B. For me - I wonder if he remembers me?