Xtreme2damax
New member
Lately I've seen a lot of bots registering and posting porn links, porn pictures and pharmaceutical related spam.
Isn't there anything else that can be done to cut down on this as it is quite disturbing?
I've been doing my part and reporting the threads/posts of the bots but I do have a few suggestions.
1. Use captcha, while it might not completely prevent spam it'll cut down on a good deal of it for bots that can not decipher the captcha.
If you don't want to go the captcha route would you at least be able to set some rules:
1. New members can not post links until they have xx amount of posts, links will either remain unparsed or have the url broken in some way. This will ensure that only legit members can post links and bot posts can be dealt with accordingly.
2. New members can not post pictures or attachments using either the
code or the boards attachment feature untill xx amount of posts are reached.
This would ensure the board is not spammed with inappropriate material by bots and that only material is posted by genuine members.
I would suggest that the minimum posts until these restrictions are lifted would be 5 - 10 posts. This way the restriction won't be too hefty on genuine members while any bots that attempt to spam the will be unsuccessful in the sense that their links won't be parsed (clickable) or they will be broken in some way.
I don't know if vbulletin supports it, but use a list of pre-defined known spam words, phrases or algorithms that are restricted which genuine members are extremely unlikely to post.
That way if excessive spam words or phrases are used in a new members/bots first post it will auto ban the bot and unparse any links or images which may be contained in the bots post.
Additionally besides just banning a bot, also ban the bots ip address and email domain or only allow members to sign up with email addresses/domains that are pre-defined (No yahoo or other email services that allow extremely easy signup).
Thanks for reading my above suggestions and I would appreciate any feedback regarding the mentioned suggestions.
Isn't there anything else that can be done to cut down on this as it is quite disturbing?
I've been doing my part and reporting the threads/posts of the bots but I do have a few suggestions.
1. Use captcha, while it might not completely prevent spam it'll cut down on a good deal of it for bots that can not decipher the captcha.
If you don't want to go the captcha route would you at least be able to set some rules:
1. New members can not post links until they have xx amount of posts, links will either remain unparsed or have the url broken in some way. This will ensure that only legit members can post links and bot posts can be dealt with accordingly.
2. New members can not post pictures or attachments using either the
This would ensure the board is not spammed with inappropriate material by bots and that only material is posted by genuine members.
I would suggest that the minimum posts until these restrictions are lifted would be 5 - 10 posts. This way the restriction won't be too hefty on genuine members while any bots that attempt to spam the will be unsuccessful in the sense that their links won't be parsed (clickable) or they will be broken in some way.
I don't know if vbulletin supports it, but use a list of pre-defined known spam words, phrases or algorithms that are restricted which genuine members are extremely unlikely to post.
That way if excessive spam words or phrases are used in a new members/bots first post it will auto ban the bot and unparse any links or images which may be contained in the bots post.
Additionally besides just banning a bot, also ban the bots ip address and email domain or only allow members to sign up with email addresses/domains that are pre-defined (No yahoo or other email services that allow extremely easy signup).
Thanks for reading my above suggestions and I would appreciate any feedback regarding the mentioned suggestions.