XF 1.5 Stop Forum Spam and Usernames

[Shawn Gossman]

I use the SFS feature on my forum to help combat registration spam. However, I'd like to know if I could potentially disable username lookups? To me, the username function is not so good. If for example, someone chose the username 'Bob', they would likely be blocked as a spammer due to 'Bob' being reported as a spammer name countless times before. This causes issues and requires my approval.

Is it possible for me to remove the username lookup feature at all?

 

[Chris D]

This would require custom development. All flags are checked by default.

 

[Sonnie]

Totally agree... we are getting hammered with false alerts of usernames.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Totally agree... we are getting hammered with false alerts of usernames.

This is why you don't flag on 1. Always flag on 2. Then use an add-on to take care of spam. Either TPU Detect Spam or TACs Foolbot honey pot.

Blocking hundreds of bots per hour and no need to use a captcha. Every captcha is useless anyhow.

 

[Sonnie]

I changed our flag to 2 last night to see if it will help... surely it will.

 

[rainmotorsports]

I changed our flag to 2 last night to see if it will help... surely it will.

It will absolutely eliminate the false positives. However it may increase the spam. With 1 flag it can trigger on any of the three. With it set to 2, it will trigger only if its: Name & Email, Name & IP, Email & IP. Any situation where its not 2, it will get passed. It would be nice to require 2 if the name triggers but only require 1 if its ip or email. But that isn't possible.

TPU Detect Spam can be configured for weight. The default is a score of 3 to moderate and then 6 to reject. A registrant can be scored on any number of things. So a +1 for countries that generate a lot of spam for example. You can also weight the stop forum spam details so +3 for ip or email would automatically moderate someone who is flagged or if its both it would equal 6 and auto reject them. Things like this. It allows you to tune it for your problems.

TAC's FBHP was a great addon prior to Xenforo adding their own honeypot protection. The core method is falling a bit behind and Tenants has resumed the addon again. It only helps with bot's, it doesn't help with human spam as much. But it's another good addon that I had used in the past.

 

[Sonnie]

Looking at both of these, but see a lot of forums have had issues with TPU, and a little concerned about being able to get all the settings set correctly.

 

[rainmotorsports]

Looking at both of these, but see a lot of forums have had issues with TPU, and a little concerned about being able to get all the settings set correctly.

I have heard of issues. I am still on an older version. @Xon has a version that should take care of the one service that I think is no longer available or something? I haven't followed it I just stuck with the version I had at some point.

FBHP I can't recommend as much. It's GREAT but apparently the technique is interfering with password managers. So he fixed it by allowing you to turn off the things that do. Which weaken's its usefulness.

As far as the settings on the TPU addon feel free to ask in the thread or shoot me a PM. Basically just score things you know are issues and score them low to start. +1 for a problem country +1 for SFS IP, +1 for SFS Email, that will moderate people from certain countries that have a stop forum spam record on email and IP. Personally i scored IP and Email +2 because those are the serious ones.

I was going to post an example of users who were moderated or rejected but I just checked the last 26 pages of my log. Jesus they gave up spamming on my site. When did this happen lol.

 

[dougdirac]

Flagging on the username is useless. I didn't have this problem on vB4. I was able to choose individually which I wanted to check for.