Fun Stuff > CHATTER
There oughta be a law!
pwhodges:
There's an open-source community-updated database of IP addresses, email addresses and forum names used by spammers, and lookup add-ons for it to integrate with most forum software. This stopped 99.9% of spammer registrations (they try at the rate of about four an hour here); but they filled up the logs and user count (they were registered but not approved), and about one spammer a week still got in. When I added the human-type questions to the registration, that stopped virtually all spambots dead. About two a week get through to the database lookup, and only four (I think) have got right through and posted this year.
Pilchard123:
Which addons would they be? There's another forum (Luxrender, if anyone cares) that I frequent that has occasional problems with spam and even though it's dealt with quickly, stopping them before they can post would obviously be even better.
EDIT: Lux is phpBB and this is SMF, but there may well be a similar one for phpBB.
pwhodges:
This is the database; you can register for free to enable supplying updates (which the SMF mod can do for you when you're processing a spammer that got past it). There are several phpBB mods for it, like this one - I've not used phpBB, so I have no view on which to choose.
An arbitrary number of questions are built in to SMF (I used a mod until I updated to v2); and I think you can do something similar in phpBB using Custom Fields (search the forum - there's stuff there) to add more than one. Note how the questions I ask here* are designed to resist automatic parsing (which will come eventually, I guess).
* "What is Marten Reed's first name?
"2 + two = ?"
Method of Madness:
Does "2 + two" = "4" or "four"?
Papersatan:
4our.
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