How can i delete thousands of fake users? [Archive]

View Full Version : How can i delete thousands of fake users?

haaba

10-04-2016, 06:18 AM

I have left my vBulletin 4 powered forum unattended for a few years.... now I have 99,000 fake users.
The user prune tool does not seem capable of deleting 20,000 account at a go. Any suggestion as to how I can quickly expunge the fake users from the forum?

I don't want to tranfe the enture forum completely as I have about 500 posts in the forum I will like to keep.

Thanks

Dragonsys

10-04-2016, 04:42 PM

anything they have in common which could be used as a filter for a SQL cmd?

TheLastSuperman

10-04-2016, 05:45 PM

anything they have in common which could be used as a filter for a SQL cmd?

Good idea, one thing to look for is repetitive profile field values such as some spambots for quite a while would enter in their username as several profile fields as well i.e.

Username: MisterMxyzptlk
Location: Mister Mxyzptlk
Biography: Mister Mxyzptlk

^ If you notice a large number of profiles with identical fields you can easily develop a query to remove them.