XF 2.3 Automatically spam clean from approval queue or don't send spam to queue at all

[TheGroove]

So I get hundreds of spam registrations a week that are sent to the approval queue where we have to manually check spam clean on each one. I'm sure I'm missing something simple here but 100% of these are spam (even though I have both Q&A and CAPTHA setup) so there's no need for us to go through this process. Ideally I would like to have it simply deny the registrations flat out if they're deemed spam. Is this possible?

 

[Paul B]

In the registration options

 

[TheGroove]

In the registration options

View attachment 301844

Okay, so if it meets this criteria it won't go to the queue at all, right?

 

[TheGroove]

This isn't working. I would just like to know how to stop from getting spam registrations in the moderation queue and still can't figure it out. Is there any way to automatically reject without going into the moderation queue?

Here is what my settings are, I incorrectly assumed that unchecking "Moderate registrations when this many warning flags are detected" would do it.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I believe it works in conjunction with the mod threshold so you need both e.g
2 for mod and 3 for reject means if there are 2 they go onto mod queue for assessment but 3 get rejected.

I think if both are 1 then any SFS flag is triggered so all are rejected, no mod queue. But beware this will include usernames registered with SFS, and a lot of usernames are also bonafide account registrations.

 

[TheGroove]

I believe it works in conjunction with the mod threshold so you need both e.g
2 for mod and 3 for reject means if there are 2 they go onto mod queue for assessment but 3 get rejected.

I think if both are 1 then any SFS flag is triggered so all are rejected, no mod queue. But beware this will include usernames registered with SFS, and a lot of usernames are also bonafide account registrations.

Okay, I'll try it. TBH these instructions are as clear as mud when it comes to this. I set both to 1 and will watch to see if they still end up in the moderation queue, in the last couple of years there have been none that were not spam, the admin team is just forced to go in there and clear out the queue several times a day. The bots have gotten really smart and no combination I've come up with has been able to stop them.

 

[Mr Lucky]

OK but bear in mind anyone registering with the username Donald will be rejected whether or not their email and/or IP is on the database.

 

[Rhody]

These work very well for me. It blocks all but a couple per month, EXCEPT common names. Those still appear in the mod queue, and most are legit mistakes. Donald, Rob, Mike, etc. I'm also using an XF2 Andy tool to block Russia and a couple other countries completely.

stopforumspam and project honeypot work well, to catch most of them. The keys are free.

 

[TheGroove]

These work very well for me. It blocks all but a couple per month, EXCEPT common names. Those still appear in the mod queue, and most are legit mistakes. Donald, Rob, Mike, etc. I'm also using an XF2 Andy tool to block Russia and a couple other countries completely.

stopforumspam and project honeypot work well, to catch most of them. The keys are free.

View attachment 301966

Okay, tried this and they're still getting through. Feels like there should be a way of simply blocking these without forcing them into the Approval Queue but it's looking like it's not possible, short of turning off new registrations entirely.

The thing is we've always had normal (non-spam) users able to easily register without any issues or need for approval. So it properly picks up that it's spam but forces you to manually reject them all. What am I missing here?

 

[Rhody]

are they all from Russia? One solution is to block that country.

We also get a lot of bots from COLOCROSSING and HETZNER servers, and blocked both of those.

Most of ours are