Stop Forum Spam

[Mark0]

A nice service that collect info about forum spammers.
It offer the ability to search for IP, username and mail address, and also expose a simple API for integration with forum software.

http://www.stopforumspam.com/

[cyberdiva]

Yes, I agree that it's a very useful site.  I'm helping the head of another forum keep that forum spam-free, and for a while I was checking with Stop Forum Spam a lot.  I no longer do that, in part because the forum has apparently put measures in place that have reduced the amount of spam, and in part because checking with SFS was taking time I no longer have.  But it is a very good site. 

[tanis424]

I'm the admin for the DOpus Resource site and I haven't seen any bot spammers at all since I changed two things in phpbb3. Firstly, only members can post, and secondly instead of a normal image captcha I am using a question captcha which asks a question regarding the authors of DOpus. This seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks. Of course, this won't stopped a real person from spamming but we've rarely seen that. In phpbb2 I used a mod called "Textual Confirmation" which does that same thing as the question captcha. Again, it solved the spam problem.

Whilst the stopspam site is a good idea, it slows down the registration process for new users and/or creates a lot of work to keep on top of the list.

[cyberdiva]

IWhilst the stopspam site is a good idea, it slows down the registration process for new users and/or creates a lot of work to keep on top of the list.

The forum on which I serve as cleaning woman  doesn't use the SFS site as part of the registration process.  I used to use SFS a lot to check my gut instincts about the people who have supposedly subscribed (and are therefore entitled to post).  In theory, there were requirements for joining, but in fact lots of people succeeded in bypassing those requirements and just hacking in.  I developed a pretty good sense of usernames that looked suspicious, and I would check them (and the IP # they used to "join") against the listings in SFS.  Fortunately, I no longer have to do that, since the forum has developed better ways to identify those who have joined illegitimately.

I like the modified captcha process you describe.  I've always hated the image identification model--heck, sometimes *I* can't even tell what the letters are.  I don't know whether the forum I'm associated with uses any sort of captcha--my responsibilities come after someone has ostensibly joined.