One for forum experts

[Legmaster]

Hi there,
Bear with me folk as I don't know the techie term for computer stuff, just trying to solve a work issue on forum security, particularly preventing spammers signing up. It's not my role but it annoys me!

I work for a sailing charity that has it's own (well under utilised) forum via our website, that is plagued by spam users. The main problem being that as we cater for blind and partially sighted people, the 'first line' of security is disabled (that funny box with random characters you need to reproduce before you can sign up), because I am led to believe that screen readers used by visually impaired folk can't get past it.

With virtually a zero IT budget, we don't have the resources to afford someone constantly monitoring the forum, so we end up with 100's of spam users registering. None post topics, but just clutter up the member list with their websites.

Is there any easy (low cost) solution or do we just need to spend more time looking after our own forum to keep it at bay (why do I get the feeling I've just answered my own question...)?

Our website is www.jst.org.uk and the forum button is on the left hand side.

Cheers for any advice
L

[Silent1]

Set up a Captcha (funny box with letters) and then provide a link saying if you can't read this email ***@***.com, and then you as the administrator can manually verify their account

[cptsideways]

I assume most users have text readers etc< why not use brail if they have readers, that'd stump the spammers

[Legmaster]

Silent1 said:

Set up a Captcha (funny box with letters) and then provide a link saying if you can't read this email ***@***.com, and then you as the administrator can manually verify their account

Sorry being thick here, so just to clarify - put in the usual Captcha box (ahh so that's the name...) and near it I guess, on the same page a link to e-mail the administrator which a screen reader could pick up?

Sound good, but surely that would only work mon - fri, 9 - 5? We're no PH, but annoying if you want to sign up out of work hours?

I have previously assumed that all this spam forum thing is done by PC's automatically roaming the web and not sad blokes searching the web - am I wrong?

[Silent1]

Legmaster said:

Silent1 said:

Set up a Captcha (funny box with letters) and then provide a link saying if you can't read this email ***@***.com, and then you as the administrator can manually verify their account

Sorry being thick here, so just to clarify - put in the usual Captcha box (ahh so that's the name...) and near it I guess, on the same page a link to e-mail the administrator which a screen reader could pick up?

Sound good, but surely that would only work mon - fri, 9 - 5? We're no PH, but annoying if you want to sign up out of work hours?

I have previously assumed that all this spam forum thing is done by PC's automatically roaming the web and not sad blokes searching the web - am I wrong?

It can be a minor annoyance but having to wait 24 hours to have a membership approved isn't going to kill someone.
It is done by bots roaming the net, hence why you set u a captcha, this stops the bots and then you provide a link for the people with poor eyesight, but you can easily filter the bots out, although i doubt any will email you and if they do it'll be obvious they're a bot. As you could put something like "when emailing the administrator please state why you want to join."

[zaktoo]

Although a text-based captcha can work fine as well, eg:

What is the colour of the deep blue sea?
What is seven plus six?
What is the opposite of up?

Etc etc.

I have implemented text-based captchas and they have worked, so far.

[philthy]

Install the textual confirmation mod:

http://bbantispam.com/tc/

Since I installed it on my forum, I have not had a single spam signup. You can tinker with the code to stop it sending notification emails if necessary. I have removed several of my other anti spam mods, and even allowed guest posting.
Have a look for yourself:
www.skidvd.co.uk/forum
If you need help with it, I'll happily sort it out for you.
Can't recommend it highly enough.

[Legmaster]

philthy said:

Install the textual confirmation mod:



http://bbantispam.com/tc/



Since I installed it on my forum, I have not had a single spam signup. You can tinker with the code to stop it sending notification emails if necessary. I have removed several of my other anti spam mods, and even allowed guest posting.

Have a look for yourself:

www.skidvd.co.uk/forum

If you need help with it, I'll happily sort it out for you.

Can't recommend it highly enough.

Thanks for the info, looks like just the thing we need. I've passed it on to our IT bloke to look at.



Cheers

L



PS Another problem solved by PH - this place is the dogs!

[philthy]

If he wants to get some more info, here's the thread from the phpbb website:
www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=472940
I found that useful.

[Legmaster]

philthy said:

If he wants to get some more info, here's the thread from the phpbb website:

http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=472...

I found that useful.

Thanks again



Passed that on too (it's all mumbo jumbo to me).