Terrible Spam

[jbizzle]

So these bots with @gmail.com accounts keep spamming my forum, I was thinking of blocking @gmail.com but it is a VERY common e-mail distributor.

I have added the spamlist mod, and another mod where you have to click the correct picture to register, and still no good.

Is there anything else I can do? Its very annoying as there are about 5-10 spammers a day.

[skubaman]

I am also looking for a better way to stop spammers. I already have reCaptcha, and have that other feature that checks a service for known IPs/Spammers.
They still go through.
Mostly have a letters and numbers usernames such as jdjdhd8738383, or they have regular user names like JohnWillians with a gmail email that includes a name and numbers such as JohnWilliams23@gmail.com

Anyway to auto-ban based on a criteria? Like multiple consonants followed by numbers?
Or can we block everybody with email .ru ?

Thanks

[Blind Dragon]

I had the same problem recently.

What i did was make a new usergroup "new members" which was for members with less than 5 post and the default group that people joined into. Then set up a promotion so that after their 5th post they become regular members.

I basically restricted them from editing their profile, editing posts. All they can do is read and create posts. I also found they targeting a specific section of my forums so that section is now off limits until users have 5 posts and get promoted.

Thanks to Brian at VBSEO I was able to set it up pretty easily:

http://www.vbseo.com/f46/what-countries-do-you-ban-totally-39157/#post244989

With this option you can monitor users with less than X number of post for keywords that they might use like 'pharmacy' or 'viagra' or whatever the common ones you see.

What it does is then que that users post for moderation - so if it is legit you can just approve it, but if not then you can block it before it goes live on your site. Plus, for users with more than X number of post it has no effect.

[ORP]

I've switched from the captcha images to questions built into VB and have not had a bot spammer for a long time. They can't read even simple question such as:
Type letmein in the box following this question.

Look in VB options / Human verification manager.
Works great for me.