Forum Moderators: mack
What is the cause?
And how do I fix it?
Please help!
-Frustrated admin
2) add a captcha.
3) require that you manually validate each new registration.
Good advice, but with both of these enabled, spammers will still use your forum as a "test bed" for the captcha-breaking programs out there. Had it happen.
In addition to these two, what really stopped the captcha-bots was adding a custom registration field with a trivia question. You set the custom registration field to NOT appear in the profile, so in effect it's a validation field only at signup. "What is 6 plus four?" You have adequate controls to explain the question and put it last in the registration form.
I had to change this field over a period of 2 weeks or so, as they kept coming back and manually changing the values for their bots. After that it just stopped. Completely.
I've never had to ban by IP (yet,) although I HAVE banned by email pattern (.ru, meds, pharm, etc . . . )
Last is get registered at and dig around the vBulletin forum itself, lots of useful contributions there for just about anything (including this solution.)
Get used to it. It will not stop. 'several' users is small time. I get a dozen a day. Others get far more.
I did add an image verification captcha. But as you mentioned I think I should use the security questions instead!
I did notice a few emails with the .ru extension. I googled the address and found a list of spam emails on this one website.
blocked much of China, Ukraine, PakistanThe problem with that is that my forum is targeting some of that area (Asia - Middle East)
require that you manually validate each new registrationthe problem with that is I will deter many users who want to immediately respond to a thread! But you may be right and that may be my only option as some point,
what really stopped the captcha-bots was adding a custom registration field with a trivia question. You set the custom registration field to NOT appear in the profile, so in effect it's a validation field only at signup.
the problem with that is I will deter many users who want to immediately respond to a thread!
Nah, if they are determined, it won't, unless they want to flame and enter an invalid email, in which case you don't need them. When thinking about this question, consider "I want all links to open in a new window so they won't leave my site. . . " it's the same line of thinking.
Can you explain that one more time?
The below are set up using the numeric "trivia" question I posed above, change to suit.
1. Log in to your vBulletin admin.
2. Open User Profile Fields.
3. Open link to Add New Profile Field.
4. For profile field type, select single line.
5. Set up the question.
For title, something like "Human Verification Question" should do the trick, in description, something like "To prevent automated registrations . . . "
Max length of user input: 1 or 2, depending on question.
Field length 3.
Required No, but display at registration.
Field editable by user: only at registration.
Private Field Yes
Field Searchable on Members List, Show on Members List both no.
Regular expression is the key. So if you ask "what is the product of three times two?" you would enter 6. Or being that it's a regexp, you could enter ^six¦SIX$ if you want to confuse everyone. :-)
Leave "show on page" at "Edit Profile" because by making it private it won't be seen.
Save it, test it, it works.
Original documentation from vBulletin [vbulletin.com]
More anti-spam measures [vbulletin.com]
I also listed a few email addresses on my ban list that you may find useful:
[theadminzone.com...]
in description, something like "To prevent automated registrations . . . "
Regular expression is the key. So if you ask "what is the product of three times two?" you would enter 6. Or being that it's a regexp, you could enter ^six¦SIX$ if you want to confuse everyone. :-)
Also when I entered the wrong answer it banned my registration and email address and said contact admin.
So as admin, where do I unblock the email addresses that I used to test the software?
Another question:
How do I remove the question and answer displayed on the user pending registrations approval's profile? Or do you think its not a big deal and that I shouldn't bother?
What should I put for the "Which page displays this option?" field?
Instead of making the user think, I just use the custom field to have them retype a word that I can change whenever.Interesting concept! Do not make your visitors think AT ALL!
"don't make them think"
Anyway, I made the changes and so far so good. We'll see how it goes.
...When I used a number it worked but when I tried the same example ^six¦SIX$ and entered " six " it didnt work....
I'd hoped you picked up my intent there, I wasn't serious about spelling out six . . . but it probably didn't work because the pipe ¦ needs to be an actual pipe, the character when you type shift -\.
Also when I entered the wrong answer it banned my registration and email address and said contact admin.
So as admin, where do I unblock the email addresses that I used to test the software?
I don't know *everything* about vBulletin, so I'm not exactly sure - I'd say try vBulletin Options -> User Banning Options.
but it probably didn't work because the pipe ¦ needs to be an actual pipe, the character when you type shift -\.I think I had used the actual pipe. but anyway it works now. I simply used a number :)
Thanks a lot for your help! :) So far so good. No more spam registration! Now I need to work on getting people to sign up!
