phpBB spam tools

**keyboard** · 03-08-2013, 10:37 AM

Anyone know some good spam prevention plugins for phpBB?

**Beverleyh** · 03-08-2013, 11:16 AM

Like anti-spam member registrations to deter auto-registration bots?

I can't remember what its called but the one I've used is where you program in a series of your own questions and answers - that's quite good for very specific genres or fan clubs, so if you're a fan of Dr Who you can program the question as "who wants to exterminate the doctor?" And you can define various acceptable answer variations such as "dalek" or "Daleks". You program in maybe 5 different questions and the forum registration form randomly displays one on page load.

I think its called something like "anti spam registration question"?

There are similar versions with simple maths questions that might be better for non-specific forums.

**keyboard** · 03-08-2013, 11:52 AM

Anti-spam registration is a start, but I was more talking about auto-moderation tools for spam posts and other stuff like that.
What tools would you suggest for a forum that's getting a couple of spam posts a day?

**james438** · 03-08-2013, 04:26 PM

I used to have a huge problem with spam on my site. It has now been a long time since I have any spam. Here is an article from phpbb on anti-spam measures. In particular I use Anti-Spam ACP, which has Akismet, and stop forum spam integration. In short, they are free and work great. I wish I could say it were easy to install, but it has been a while and I can't quite remember how difficult it was.

**Beverleyh** · 03-08-2013, 08:05 PM

Do you use .htaccess keebs?

I have a list of spammy offender IPs blocked with "deny from" in my .htaccess file. I can send you a copy if it helps. I also use a spam bot trap that lures in bots and automatically write their IP on a deny from line at the bottom of the htaccess file.

Amongst other things, I also set up a decoy form after observing that bots tend to attack the first form they find on a web page before moving on. Here's an article I wrote on that which you might find interesting: http://webtips.jemcon.org/blog.php?p...a%20page?#read

**keyboard** · 03-08-2013, 08:30 PM

I'm really only looking for plugins within phpbb, but I might consider it Bev... Hmmm..
And james, thanks for that link. One question though; are they all manual moderation tools, or are there some automatic ones within that package? I couldn't figure it out just from looking at the page.

**Beverleyh** · 03-08-2013, 10:06 PM

Where spam is concerned, I think the more weapons you can add to your arsenal, the better

I'll have a look for other anti spam plugins though - so you're talking about snagging them at the point of posting a message right?

**keyboard** · 03-08-2013, 10:31 PM

Yep, exactly.

**james438** · 03-08-2013, 10:40 PM

It involves mostly automatic moderation tools by blocking known spam bots by analyzing the links and post content in a hundred different ways. It also allows you to alter the spam filter parameters by adding regular expressions if you so desire to block certain common drug advertisements. Of all of the anti spam measures I have tried Akismet is the best. Anti-Spam ACP has akismet in it. It blocks spam without being overly strict and it isn't annoying to users by having them answer a riddle before every post and lastly it gets better the longer you use it. It has been a long time since I have had any spam on my forums or blog.