better forumotion spam filter

Because of the one we have already is not not fit for purpose because it keep block random members for no reason we need this feature to be improved

it shouldn't hard to do forumotion making their our spam filter by using us as a filter tool if 4/5 different forum report the same email address that email address should be blacklist this option would be 1000times better then the one at the moment.

edit: who in their real mind would vote no maybe time for me to move, RANDOM members are getting block for no reason for god sake!!

Steve it's not that the Online Guardian anti-spam plugin that Forumotion use is not working.
It is,but the problem is that I think there is a fault in the captcha.
As when a user is asked to fill out captcha to verify their account,it does not work.Even though they have filled out the verification code correctly.
So it's actually the captchpa that's broken I think. But when that's fixed that should be okay.
Also if your members have filled out the captcha and they are still blocked.
Leeloo said on another thread that you should PM her with both the usernames and email addresses of the members who are blocked.Then she can remove them from the block list.

Andrea Borman wrote:Steve it's not that the Online Guardian anti-spam plugin that Forumotion use is not working.
It is,but the problem is that I think there is a fault in the captcha.
As when a user is asked to fill out captcha to verify their account,it does not work.Even though they have filled out the verification code correctly.
So it's actually the captchpa that's broken I think. But when that's fixed that should be okay.
Also if your members have filled out the captcha and they are still blocked.
Leeloo said on another thread that you should PM her with both the usernames and email addresses of the members who are blocked.Then she can remove them from the block list.

That not my problem i can fix by changing he password and log on to their account

my problem is how many member who's had their account lock without telling me and just left and join a rival forum, i have nearly got 10,000 members on forum their could be 1,000 member who been block for no reason at all. that my problem the spam filter is broken and we all could be losing members

Well you can post an update about this on your forum make a global announcement.Explaining the situation,telling members that if it happens to them,they need to contact you or one of your moderators to unblock them.
You could also send out a newsletter or email to all your members.Explaining what they need to do if they find themselves locked out of the forum,for any reason.

I voted no, The members getting banned randomly is something you should ask support about, My spam filter works perfectly The way it is

this problem shouldn't be here if i was running the server it wouldn't of been added anybody with common sense would of knew this would happen,

90% of people who join and use my forum are not pc wise so they dont read every topic on my forum so am announcement wouldn't be any help

Zacbonic/Albinotiger wrote:I voted no, The members getting banned randomly is something you should ask support about, My spam filter works perfectly The way it is

you have got 10 member how the hell do you know if it work or dont you have laugh at some people on here at times


the spam filter doesn't work people are getting banned for no reason for god sake this forum is for kids i swear

S-t-e-v-e- wrote:this problem shouldn't be here if i was running the server it wouldn't of been added anybody with common sense would of knew this would happen,

90% of people who join and use my forum are not pc wise so they dont read every topic on my forum so am announcement wouldn't be any help

So what your saying is 90% of your users don't read your forum's rules?
I have other forums, And i was only stating no because I really don't think it is needed.

i dont have kids on my forums so they dont need to read my rules if there a disagreement i will point them to my rules...

i was using forum & making before you got out of nappies please dont tell me what is and not needed, i have nearly 10,000 members, i wonder how many have been block and hasn't told me there could be 100's or1000s that have been block without letting me know so how is this so call spam filter helping me to grow? please think before you post again

well i did tell you this would happen most member on here are kids and very small forums who dont get this problem. i have just about enough when i have to pay more then a VPS server I'm off i dont know why i even return to forumotion a big mistake that was hey.

You are free to move on, its your decision to make. I won't tolerate you disrespecting anyone here. Thanks.

you know i'm not free to move on! 2 year worth of work, 10,000 members lost 450,000 post will be lost only think i can take would be the traffic

Well Steve first of all you could email your members and explain that if they get locked out of their account. They must contact you or one of your moderators. You could post a thread about this on your forum also to let them know.

Second,even if you do choose to host your forum yourself as you said you would do in one of the threads.
You will find that every forum software Phpbb,or V Bulletin for example will have anti-spam plugins.

Not the same as Forumotion's of course, as it's different software, but it does the same thing. It protects your website or forum from spammers and hackers. You will find it's the same where ever you go there will be spam blocks.

From what I have been told by other people is that-
The reason why users could be blocked is, not because they are spammers.
But the usernames they are using have somehow ended up on the spam list.

If members are using short or common usernames, such as Dave or Jane a lot of people use those. So in order to help avoid this being a problem in the future you could.

Change your forum settings so that new users registering on your forum cannot register with short usernames say less than 5 letters.
You could also advise them to choose a username that is unique and not one used by everybody else.

A lot of other sites won't let you register with too short a username. Or one that is not lowercase letters with some dashes or numbers.
Some sites do this for security reasons, but it also protects users registering from having these problems.

If it's only the username that is blocked you could simply change it.
If however their email or IP address is blacklisted.You can go to Leeloo and she can remove them from the blocklist.

In my case it was only my members usernames that were blocked, not their IPs or email address. So I was able to solve the problem by changing their username. They were then able to log in again.

What you could do is go to the Stop Forum Spam website.
Type in the usernames,IP addresses, and email address, of those members who are being blocked.

If nothing comes up in the search under any of those your members are not on the spam list.

But if anything does come up under either their username,email or IP address.
Then they are on the blacklist,and it could be just the username that is,or it could be the IP or email address,depending.

Then you will need to do what we have advised you to do here.
That is to contact Leeloo with the username and email address or IP(if that is also blocked,) She will then unblock your members.

Finally I agree that, yes, there is a problem with the captcha and it needs to be fixed by FM. So that when you type in the captcha correctly it unblocks the accounts. As it does when you complete captcha on other sites. Though that's something only Forumotion can sort out.

ok my vote is yes and No but top vote would be yes i think

This shoud be looked at again and maybe have all the banned names on the ACP so each admin can remove the ones they want there self if needs be that way onlyyour own forum is at risk if you pick to have them removed so thats the yes side of it.

The no side if it is that i think we need to look at the big pic here !!
we get all our blacklist from Google and Bing so i was told this is a free black list that we have put on our servers to keep the spammers out or at-least try and do it anyway.

No black list if 100% fool proof but Google and Bing only go on the reported names and ip address that has been reported a number of times.

as one of the other members have said your free to pm Leeloo at any time in office hrs and give her the names and Email address of the members that are banned. and she will go in and try and remove them for you..

I see your point that some members find that there banned and can not get in so they leave with out saying nothing to you but the only way around this right now is to send a news letter out to all your members telling them the problem in hand with an Email address to you.

ok most members ask not to have News letters which is there right so the next step is to send an Email and make a post in the main forum or home page

Yes the Captcha is a problem i think as this will just refresh the page when filled in and that is not right so maybe the tech's need to look ay this some more and deal with that problem

maybe add it so you have to fill in this 2 times to get it to open your account.

anyway that is my 2 pence worth and i have not made a vote on the poll as i need to think about my vote some more

Ape

APE wrote:The no side if it is that i think we need to look at the big pic here !!
we get all our blacklist from Google and Bing so i was told this is a free black list that we have put on our servers to keep the spammers out or at-least try and do it anyway.

No black list if 100% fool proof but Google and Bing only go on the reported names and ip address that has been reported a number of times.

There is nothing new about that as most ant-spam plugins work this way.

APE wrote:Yes the Captcha is a problem i think as this will just refresh the page when filled in and that is not right so maybe the tech's need to look ay this some more and deal with that problem

maybe add it so you have to fill in this 2 times to get it to open your account.

anyway that is my 2 pence worth and i have not made a vote on the poll as i need to think about my vote some more

Well the problem is that the plugin or captcha is broken.
As my members report filling in the captcpa more than 10 times correctly but it simply would not let them in.

I tried with one member who is a friend of mine. I sat beside him at his computer and it was the same for me. Even though I also filled it in correctly several times.
I have filled in captchpa like that on other sites and have not had a problem.
So yes the plugin is broken regarding the captcha and needs fixing or replacing.

All sites and forum software have anti-spam plugins.
As I told Steve, even if you host your own forum,there will be anti-spam plugins in the forum software.
Including forum software you upload to your webhost-
V bulletin,Phpbb,Simple Machines all have anti-spam plugins when you install it,that cannot be removed.
These plugins are invisible so most of the time you would not know they are there.

Forumotion is no different to other sites and yes there should be an anti-spam plugin.
But Forumotion need to, either fix it, so the captcha works which is the problem everyones having.Then also fix any other bugs if found.
Or if it cannot be fixed, replace it with a different plugin.

Andrea Borman wrote:
Well the problem is that the plugin or captcha is broken.
As my members report filling in the captcpa more than 10 times correctly but it simply would not let them in.

I tried with one member who is a friend of mine. I sat beside him at his computer and it was the same for me. Even though I also filled it in correctly several times.
I have filled in captchpa like that on other sites and have not had a problem.
So yes the plugin is broken regarding the captcha and needs fixing or replacing.

All sites and forum software have anti-spam plugins.
As I told Steve, even if you host your own forum,there will be anti-spam plugins in the forum software.
Including forum software you upload to your webhost-
V bulletin,Phpbb,Simple Machines all have anti-spam plugins when you install it,that cannot be removed.
These plugins are invisible so most of the time you would not know they are there.

Forumotion is no different to other sites and yes there should be an anti-spam plugin.
But Forumotion need to, either fix it, so the captcha works which is the problem everyones having.Then also fix any other bugs if found.
Or if it cannot be fixed, replace it with a different plugin.

Yes we know there is a problem with the Captcha i just said that did i not ?? And i'm sure the tech's will look at this if and when they can the problem is no matter what we do right now we are still gonna run in to the problem of the black list anyway. If a name a ip address is on the servers ban list your members will still not get in unless Leeloo or the other pro admin remove it on the servers.

as i said we need this looked at a little from FM's end.

If the banned list was set in the ACP we could filter this our self and set the Captcha to say enter the info twice to make sure it's not a bot putting in the info in the first place.

we all know that VB and other forums have this as well but its some thing FM have to look at again.

there is the same post about this on the french forum and they say there is not a problem but as you and i say there is a problem that one system don't know what the other is doing

at the end of the day if the black list has that name on the system and its just been updated on our servers your members will get that warning and the problem starts all over again. Not sure when FM update there spamm black list but

This is how it should be
Google and bing send this info to FM we then add it to the servers
IP address ** 34 ** 456 name on account "Billy no mates" x 200 times
IP address ** 244 ** 56 name on account "big foot fights back" x 100 times
No if this was on the ACP we could just remove the name "Billy no mates" and keep the ip address in the ban list.
Only other problem is if you have a rolling Ip address sooner or later some one in the unlucky list will get this IP address and be banned on the spot so once again your have to unban the ip address and user name again.

APE wrote:Yes we know there is a problem with the Captcha i just said that did i not ?? And i'm sure the tech's will look at this if and when they can the problem is no matter what we do right now we are still gonna run in to the problem of the black list anyway. If a name a ip address is on the servers ban list your members will still not get in unless Leeloo or the other pro admin remove it on the servers.

as i said we need this looked at a little from FM's end.

If the banned list was set in the ACP we could filter this our self and set the Captcha to say enter the info twice to make sure it's not a bot putting in the info in the first place.

Thanks for explaining this more APE.
As I said in my case it was only the usernames of the members who where blocked. Not any of their IPs or email address.
So if it's only the username on the blacklist you can solve this problem by changing it or even adding a dash,a number or full stop in front.

If however it is the email or IP addresses on the blacklist,then you would have to go to Leeloo who can remove them from the list.

I checked with Stop Forum Spam here-
http://www.stopforumspam.com/

I simply did a search for the username first and a number of entries were found under the usernames.

But when I did a search under my users email address and then their IP addresses,(all of the IPs,)nothing came up under those.
So as for their IPs and email addresses, they were in the clear, as nothing came up on the list.

However, the usernames were on the spam list. This does not of course mean that our members are spammers.Just that the usernames they are using have somehow ended up on the spam list.

The Stop Forum Spam website is a good guide for any forum admin, and if your member is having a problem.
You could do a search under first-

Their username they are using.

Then their email address and then all of the IPs they have used on the forum.

Then you will know what exactly is being blocked.
Depending if anything comes up under either the username,IP or email address.
So Stop Forum Spam is a good guideline.

I find the usernames that come up on the list at Stop forum Spam tend to be very short and common usernames,like Pat, or Jane.
These may be of course some of the members real names and so they may want to use them.

Also a member may want to use a short or common username because it's easy for them to remember.Or maybe they want something more distant from their real name.
So many members will register with a short username.

You can avoid this being a problem on your forum by changing the registration settings under-
Do not allow most commonly used spam usernames.
Set it to yes.

Then new users who register won't be able to register with short or common usernames such as Jane or Joe.
You could also I think, (though I don't know how to),change the settings in CSS to make the usernames no capitals or spaces or no less than 5 letters long,I think.

Finally your last suggestion about having the banned list displayed in the admin panel is a good idea.
Would this also mean we could perhaps turn off the anti-spam plug in or change it's settings if it was blocking out people who should not be blocked?

As I said it's not the anti-spam plugin in as all sites have them.
The problem is the captcha which there is a fault on. As no matter how many times a user completes it.The page refreshes and they get an error message saying incorrect verification code.
When they did fill in the code correctly. Which is why users are blocked and cannot log into the forums.

By the way APE I got my domain back,Leeloo still had it on the database.
Thought I would let you know that.

Honestly there are plenty of things they can do to reverse the hassle of having to come over here, and one person says talk to this person but that person is not even here anymore. Then find out by some other person we have to talk to this other guy to get members off the list. So keep your plugin or what ever it is to be honest, though maybe a feature where we can undo the blacklist ourselves by simply entering some data information. Such as their usernames, this would be so much quicker then getting dipped around here at the support board.

Also would be a quaint little add on, I would say and I'm sure it is not that hard to implement this at all.

Mr.EasyBB wrote: Honestly there are plenty of things they can do to reverse the hassle of having to come over here, and one person says talk to this person but that person is not even here anymore. Then find out by some other person we have to talk to this other guy to get members off the list. So keep your plugin or what ever it is to be honest, though maybe a feature where we can undo the blacklist ourselves by simply entering some data information. Such as their usernames, this would be so much quicker then getting dipped around here at the support board.

Also would be a quaint little add on, I would say and I'm sure it is not that hard to implement this at all.

I agree Mr EasyBB. I have closed down and deleted my forum over this and I am now going to take my forum elsewhere. As we still had this problem despite me changing the usernames. As someone else said on another thread,changing the username is not an acceptable alternative.

The Godfather is the one who has taken over Leeloo's duties and has access to the block list. So he can remove users who are blocked from the block list. The problem is he is not online very much and cannot be contacted by PM by members.
So if a Forumotion admin or member gets blocked, there is now no one who can sort this out quickly as there was when Leeloo was here.

Another problem, is should it be the founder who is blocked from their forum,nobody can change the founders username,except the founder of the forum. Meaning another forum admin on our forums,,won't be able to change the founders username,to unblock,him or her,if they are blocked. So if you are the founder of your forum,you are stuck,as well as other members who are blocked,if changing the username does not work.

I and other Forumotion members here, who also have their own FM forums have told Forumotion about this several times. Indeed there are several threads about this from other users on this forum. But Forumotion won't fix this problem,which has been going on for months now.Yet they know about it,as several other members have complained, saying they or their members are blocked from their own forums. It's not fair on you or other admins and founders of Forumotion forums,as this is ruining our forums. As they are loosing members because they cannot access the forums. Also an admin or founder may be blocked by this plugin.

@Andrea Borman: Leeloo leaving has caused alot of problems and I can't blame you for leaving forumotion, they need a new active admin too take her place, but sadly that isn't going too happen anytime soon.
All i can say is if you come into this problem post about it in the support section of the help forum.

Zacbonic/Albinotiger wrote:@Andrea Borman: Leeloo leaving has caused alot of problems and I can't blame you for leaving forumotion, they need a new active admin too take her place, but sadly that isn't going too happen anytime soon.
All i can say is if you come into this problem post about it in the support section of the help forum.

Thanks but some of the threads about this problem go as far back as over a year ago,so this is an ongoing problem. So it wasn't only my forum. If this has been going on for over a year I don't understand why Forumotion won't fix it. They say the captcha works but we know it doesn't.

May i ask where they said the captcha works? (Sorry a bit confused) Forumotion may not be able too fix it. It might be the captcha services problem. Or is the captcha forumotions? Eh I don't know.

Forumotion could either fix that spam filter or replace it with a different one. We know that when users fill in the captcha.Even though they fill it in correctly it just refreshes to another captcha page again and again. So no matter how many times they fill it in correctly,it doesn't unblock them. So they cannot log into the forum as Steve says. Forumotion know this but won't fix it.

Oh... ok Well then Nothing the admin of the forum could do either, I've never experienced this problem so, yeah. All we can do is hope they fix it :o

Well if you or your members have never had this problem on your forum,you are very lucky. As many other Forumotion forums have had,and are still having this problem. There are several other threads on here about this,some go back to over a year ago. So this problem has been going on for quite some time now.

Have you considered the possibility that the problem could indeed be from your end? I read where you mentioned once that you do not use any anti-virus programs on your computer, that you somehow think you don't need any protection, well I would suggest you think about the possibility that you have a virus on your computer and its doing things that forumotions spam filter detects and doesn't like. That same theory applies to anyone like you not using any anti-virus protection.

runawayhorses wrote:Have you considered the possibility that the problem could indeed be from your end? I read where you mentioned once that you do not use any anti-virus programs on your computer, that you somehow think you don't need any protection, well I would suggest you think about the possibility that you have a virus on your computer and its doing things that forumotions spam filter detects and doesn't like. That same theory applies to anyone like you not using any anti-virus protection.

I don't use any anti-virus programs but all of my other members do. But it was not me who was blocked.It was some of my members that were. This is a problem on other FM forums not only mine. As Forumotion control the plugin not us. We cannot remove or disable it.

Voted No.

If the correct options on forumotion's Admin Panel are set (Enable unofficial forms -> No, Enable Flood Control -> 30 seconds, Enable Captcha and E-Mail Confirmation for newly registering users), spam is literally non-existent and only caused by upset members who did not follow a forum's rules.

Ultron's Vision wrote:Voted No.

If the correct options on forumotion's Admin Panel are set (Enable unofficial forms -> No, Enable Flood Control -> 30 seconds, Enable Captcha and E-Mail Confirmation for newly registering users), spam is literally non-existent and only caused by upset members who did not follow a forum's rules.

Sadly that's not true. As the spam filter is blocking out users of other Forumotion forums that have all of those features enabled.

I'd actually like my forum to be open to spam if it would solve the problem being stated throughout this entire thread.

Spam is easily deleted and dealt with.

I've known forums to get spam attacked daily by spam bots and they manage by removing the spammed content e.g deleting and then banning or deleting the member and then adding its IP to the banned members list.