XF 2.3 Approval Queue - will this thing ever improve?

[torontotim]

I've had to temporarily revert to approving all new members, because somehow some TEMU coupon posting bots are making it past every single Captcha option in Xenforo.

Purchased an add-on so I can batch-reject and delete a bunch of them.

However - when I Approve one, it REMAINS IN THE BLOODY QUEUE. WTF is with Xenforo and this useless Approval Queue? No batch processing, no ability to clean it out easily, and when you approve something it stays in the queue.

Sheesh.

 

[Jeremy P]

Approved items shouldn't stay in the queue. It's worth trying with add-ons disabled on a default style.

Also if there are a bunch of items from a single member, selecting the spam clean action on any item should reject all items from that member.

 

[Kirby]

Purchased an add-on so I can batch-reject and delete a bunch of them.

There is no need for an Add-on, you can batch-update users from the backend.

When you approve something it stays in the queue.

This certainly isn't normal, it would only stay in the queue if (for whatever reason) the user can't be updated.
Do you have any errors in the log?

 

[TCG2007]

This sounds 100% admin error. I have a plugin to batch from the queue and flawless every time.

 

[torontotim]

Yep - invalid user state.

I got the add-on because I had 10,000+ ancient spam-bot user registrations that I simply ignored for 5 years. So I needed a quick way to go through them and delete them. I didn't want to get into SQL at the time.

The plug-in works fine - [XB] Approval Queue Improvements 2.1.3 Patch Level 3

But when I approve a valid user (after emailing them to confirm they're a human) the User registration remains in the queue.

I'd simply use the tool to delete them all, but the only option with the add-on is to do that for all the entries. I can filter them down I suppose to the one I want to delete, but that doesn't solve the issue of Xenforo not removing the one I've approved.

​

 

[torontotim]

So maybe the add-on is interfering - I'll remove it and try again.

Sure enough, that worked. Disabling the add-on returns to normal behaviour.

My dissatisfaction with the approval queue remains - no standard batch processing makes it pretty useless when you get nailed with thousands of spam-bots. I've been running the forum for 18 years, the last 6 on Xenforo and have done all the work myself with regards to running the VPS (Linode), migrating from SMF etc. etc.

So sure, 'admin error' and in this case an apparent bug in the add-on, but at the same time, processing multiple items in the approval queue without resorting to SQL would be pretty reasonable to expect in the 'Approval Queue'.

 

[Seeker-Smith]

So maybe the add-on is interfering - I'll remove it and try again.

Sure enough, that worked. Disabling the add-on returns to normal behaviour.

My dissatisfaction with the approval queue remains - no standard batch processing makes it pretty useless when you get nailed with thousands of spam-bots. I've been running the forum for 18 years, the last 6 on Xenforo and have done all the work myself with regards to running the VPS (Linode), migrating from SMF etc. etc.

So sure, 'admin error' and in this case an apparent bug in the add-on, but at the same time, processing multiple items in the approval queue without resorting to SQL would be pretty reasonable to expect in the 'Approval Queue'.

Try question answer for Captcha. I've used it for years without issue.

 

[torontotim]

Try question answer for Captcha. I've used it for years without issue.

As mentioned I’m using captcha and have tried all the variants in the platform. Recently a flurry of accounts made it through and were all posting Temu coupons.

So forum owners be warned - there are bots out there who can circumvent all the Xenforo obstacles. 30 second timer on the registration, all the different captchas, email confirmations - none of it stops them.

 

[TCG2007]

I get maybe 2 scam accounts a day, at most. Most are rejected based on settings, blocked with cloudflare, or handled via plugins like ozz's spaminator.

 

[torontotim]

I’ll check out spaminator. It was just a flurry but it was north of 100 daily.

With my IFTTT Facebook integration the spam posts were making it there forcing me to turn that off and repeatedly delete FB posts.

In 5 years I had over 10,000 spam accounts in the queue to delete so that gives you an idea of the volume daily over time. They were all rejected but sitting clogging up the Approval Queue all this time.

The site is large with 50k members and almost a million posts over 18 years so it gets a bit of attention from these things.

 

[TCG2007]

How many active members? Not that it's relevant to this discussion but just curious out of that 50k.

My site is small in terms of membership but we're at almost 5 million posts and 200k threads and by the grace of God, I've managed to keep the spam at bay.

 

[torontotim]

How many active members? Not that it's relevant to this discussion but just curious out of that 50k.

My site is small in terms of membership but we're at almost 5 million posts and 200k threads and by the grace of God, I've managed to keep the spam at bay.

Not nearly enough. The heyday was back in 2017 or so. Loads of affiliate revenue, tons of activity, page views etc. Turned down a high 5 figure offer from VerticalScope back then to sell and am still glad I did as I made more money keeping it and more importantly I’ve kept my core dedicated group of friends/members happy.

Companies were founded by members who met on the site, we’ve done many live events, been part of festivals and many lifelong friendships have been built over almost 20 years.

It could go offline tomorrow and none of that would change.

Facebook Groups has taken a massive chunk out the traffic and it costs me money to keep it online now but I’ll keep footing the bills and keep it independent and around for a while longer.

 

[TCG2007]

Got a link?

Also, you made the right choice not selling to VS. Money is great, watching your dreams turned into dog turds isn't.

 

[torontotim]

www.dotheton.com