A few days ago I was asked to help moderate a forum that uses version 2.3.4. Spammers (robots) have been invading the forum. The Administrator tells me he is going to pay for a Professional Upgrade of the current vBulletin version in a couple of weeks when he gets back in town. In the meantime, I'm going to try to help keep the spammers at bay.
The forum Administrator said it better than I could:
I own a forum that uses a newer version of vBulletin (and I'm planning to update it in a week or two as well) so I have a little experience Administrating the software, but that doesn't seem to translate very well to this problem.
In September 2006 someone I know registered and posted on the forum. I noticed his user name does not show-up in the member list. When I got moderator privileges, I discovered he is still in the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" user group. I sent an email to him at a different email address, and he replied. He said he got rid of that old email address, but remembered clicking on the link in the email to complete the registration.
The other moderator tells me he's been busy deleting porn spams and getting rid of the people who post them... But he's also been telling me he cant find the spammers in the Member list. Now that I can see this stuff, all of the recent porn spammers are either posting as guest or are in the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" user group.
I can Ban registered users, but not delete them. I can't do either with "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation." (And I haven't figured out yet how to Ban an email address...)
Has this forum been hacked? Since the Administrator will be out of town for the next week, is there anything I can do as a Moderator to get rid of these posters?
The forum Administrator said it better than I could:
I have made you a moderator on all forums... I enabled every option as far as what a moderator can do.
I think the options you were talking about are not available on the older version of vBulletin that is running now. At least I can't find them in the control panel. Some of the things I should be able to do don't seem to work. I have the controls set to require my approval on any new members but they just seem to automatically become members. Also some of the forums that are supposed to require a membership to post seem to sometimes allow a guest to post. I won't worry a lot about this now since the upgrade should be happening soon.
I appreciate your help on this. I don't expect to have much internet access on my trip so the forum will be in your hands and Bill's hands while I am gone."
I think the options you were talking about are not available on the older version of vBulletin that is running now. At least I can't find them in the control panel. Some of the things I should be able to do don't seem to work. I have the controls set to require my approval on any new members but they just seem to automatically become members. Also some of the forums that are supposed to require a membership to post seem to sometimes allow a guest to post. I won't worry a lot about this now since the upgrade should be happening soon.
I appreciate your help on this. I don't expect to have much internet access on my trip so the forum will be in your hands and Bill's hands while I am gone."
In September 2006 someone I know registered and posted on the forum. I noticed his user name does not show-up in the member list. When I got moderator privileges, I discovered he is still in the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" user group. I sent an email to him at a different email address, and he replied. He said he got rid of that old email address, but remembered clicking on the link in the email to complete the registration.
The other moderator tells me he's been busy deleting porn spams and getting rid of the people who post them... But he's also been telling me he cant find the spammers in the Member list. Now that I can see this stuff, all of the recent porn spammers are either posting as guest or are in the "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation" user group.
I can Ban registered users, but not delete them. I can't do either with "Users Awaiting Email Confirmation." (And I haven't figured out yet how to Ban an email address...)
Has this forum been hacked? Since the Administrator will be out of town for the next week, is there anything I can do as a Moderator to get rid of these posters?
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