Human Spammers

[Bawse]

Does your forum have any issues with human spammers? It's become an issue on my forum as of late. I don't think these accounts are bots, but I've been getting users that sign up, and create a generic intro post. I wasn't thinking too much about it at first, but I've noticed multiple new users doing it, and never return afterwards.

 

[Cedric]

Yeah, it seems to be the latest trend. I see them on different forums, sometimes under different usernames, but the same intro post.

I've been questioning it too if I should keep them or delete them. In theory they don't do anything wrong. But it's weird. They may be creating fake accounts to use for spam later on.

I also noticed as soon as they registered and confirmed the account, they change their email. Very weird behavior.

 

[Bawse]

Yeah, it seems to be the latest trend. I see them on different forums, sometimes under different usernames, but the same intro post.

I've been questioning it too if I should keep them or delete them. In theory they don't do anything wrong. But it's weird. They may be creating fake accounts to use for spam later on.

I also noticed as soon as they registered and confirmed the account, they change their email. Very weird behavior.

Yes very weird. Good thing Xenforo has a tool to remove all spam/posts at once. I just wish when I clicked the spam button it'd permanently delete the posts. I also banned several IP addresses hoping I get less accounts doing it. The into posts are always really generic, and mention nothing related to my niche.

 

[Bryn]

Never seen it myself, but I'll keep an eye out...

 

[Cpvr]

Never seen it myself, but I'll keep an eye out...

They’re more than likely targeting Xenforo forums as they’re joining a bunch of forums that are using the software. They make a new
Account on one forum, then jump to another forum while using the same post/topic.

It’s been on going for the past week or two.

 

[Bawse]

They’re more than likely targeting Xenforo forums as they’re joining a bunch of forums that are using the software. They make a new
Account on one forum, then jump to another forum while using the same post/topic.

It’s been on going for the past week or two.

Yeah, and it's super annoying creating more work for me when I want to focus on other aspects of my site.

 

[Cedric]

We should come up with something that bugs the fuck out of them when they revisit. A Rick Roll page.

 

[Uptrendfinancialsignal]

This is happening in my forum right now as I get a lot of them coming in, registering, making post and disappearing. I was able to contain the situation by making my registration a little bit stricter, like adding email verification and captcha. That solved it really quickly.

 

[Cpvr]

Yeah, and it's super annoying creating more work for me when I want to focus on other aspects of my site.

I'd recommend placing new users under approval mode to stop most of them or make their first 5 posts set to moderation. I'd also discourage their accounts along with their ip.

This way you can yield out the spammers from regular members.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I'm guessing these spammers searched for "community platform by Xenforo" and just decided to pick a bunch of active Xenforo forums to join. It's odd, I know from time to time members will join and make a introduction topic and leave. I've done this before in the past, because I was in a hurry and joined a random forum then forgot about it. :V