GOOD WORK! In the first 20 minutes it's already blocked 7 spammers.

Question: Do you have Mod tools to help delete existing spammers (slepping spammers) so I can get rid of them? I have probably 1,000 sleppers on my site that have zero form posts and zero blog posts.

Let me update my problem: I have at least 1,000 "sleepers" on the site with no way to quickly ban them. They have no blog posts and no forum posts - they appear to have been created so they can spam inside the User Profile and they also will spam people's Visitor Messages on other members User Profiles. There is an instant-ban tool that I can get installed into the user profile but I'd rather not have to do that if I don't have to.

See that answer 2 posts above or check the FAQ on the first page.

Thank you, I didn't realize that. :)

What about this part of my problems:

With vBSFS enabled I see last registered user, with only SOM don't. I'll test further without vBSFS turned on.

Anyone reply to this? I'd like to be able to click a button on their profile to say "spammer" or whatnot. If this was already asked and answered, sorry but I couldn't find it in the thread and the thread is almost 900 replies now. =)

Not sure what you are referring to. Screenshots might help.

It's been answered at least 2 times on this page alone, it is also in the FAQ on the first page.

This has been installed for just over a month now and I think this quote from the bottom of my forum says it all.

"5436 Spammers Denied Registration"

Thank you Glowhosts, we had a very bad spammer problem before installing your software, since then only 1 has gotten through.

I think there is a communication problem here. We need to define what we are talking about as some people talk about visitor links, some people talk about profile spam and there are a few other ways that this same problem is being talked about. -- Profile Page Ban would be something that would catch my attention, with benefits for that following.

Anyhow, this is a very effective piece of code, donation coming for sure!

Also, the list goes primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary.

Just to clarify, it would be nice to have a tool that would ban all users that are associated with an IP. So, enter an IP and ban 300 spam account. Enter another IP and ban 250 spam accounts.

* I sent in an PP donation, but I guess I didn't realize until now that this is a company-sponsored mod so my $5 doesn't mean anything. I'll consider allowing one of the links going up on the site.

The donation counts, I have to pay our programmers to make the code so every little bit helps. Thanks a lot.

Regarding this idea, its a bit risky because its not uncommon for a legit user to have the same IP address as a spammer, especially in the entire history of the forum which for many boards would span several years. The odds of banning legit users would be pretty high, especially on large boards.

Primary - visitor links
Secondary - profile spam
Tertiary - Profile Page Ban
Quaternary - ???

What was the fourth point?

Here is my shot at defining them:

Visitor links - These are handled by auto-moderation and newbies manager. Unregisterred or newbies post are moderated when a post with a link is found. Unless we are talking about some other area.

Profile spam - This should be addressed in 2.5 via a Profile Page Ban in admin cP or possibly on the menu that pops up when you click the username on the forum postbit (if hooks system supports it) which is my vote for placement instead of having to login to admin cP.

Thank you! This is probably the most common spam with vB v4.X, so it should be priority #1.

Do we have an estimated time of arrival for v2.5?

I will donate once this is completed, because I feel without this option it's not as affective as it should be.

Ok, I'm talking about:

When someone registers, he's seen as the latest registered member in WGO. And he stays there till new member registers and so on and on.

I noticed with SOM that latest registered member isn't shown in WGO, but a member before (not necessarily just before, there could be more of them between). Like for some reason SOM blocks latest registered member from showing on WGO.

I'll test it a bit more, to see if it is some problem with caching or something else.

EDIT: Here's an example:

SOM log (erased IPs and emails):

On WGO, now (22:55) you see: Welcome to our newest member, nemiran

Obviously MALA GARA registered after, but it's still not shown. It may be something related with caching, but I'll see. If it is just caching, it's not a problem.

I don't know what WGO is.

wgo = What's Going On?

Its that statistics box at the bottom of your main forum index page, listing who's online, forum stats, etc.

I don't know, I never noticed it before. You are the first to report it if it exists.

Yes, WGO is What's Going On, you also use it for your statistics (if it's enabled). On forum home, go to bottom of your page and above footer there it is. :) And now I think that this is something related with caching, not with SOM. I'll test it a bit further.

Installed and set for SFS but not AKismet. Seems to work great!

Question: If a user passes the initial check and still is able to register but didn't post, is there an option to report them?

I don't want to post this users info, but he appears to be a spammer by his email / and his website / info etc....I know my US gaming clan doesn't need acrylic chairs from Europe.

I know I can ban him after he post to report, just didn't know of an option before hand. I would be nice to have an option in the User Manager Screen to do this.

PS Only been using this mod for a few weeks and already denied 25 people already. Great MOD so far.

I have two feature requests for this awesome modification:

1. IF the SFS server is unreachable, check again at a later time. My reason for requesting this, is that I see that some spammers get past SFS. I assume this this due to SFS being unreachable or my server maxing out.
2. Usergroup Permissions for showing 'Home Page URL'. (IF member is in the newbie usergroup, then do not show their 'Home Page URL' in postbit.)

I added this article to vb.com:
Bulletproof spam & scraper protection

Couldn't you make your own edit of postbit(legacy) for Home Page URL? If someone is member of certain usergroup, just don't show it to the world.

I think it would be beneficial for everyone. Not just me. The Homepage url field is one of the few places that spam bots place their links.

It would be easy for me to do that if the conditional would depend upon the reader, not the poster. But what I want to do is hide the homepage url if the poster is in usergroup X,Y,Z.

Well, yes, it could be useful for all if it is programmed into mod.

For start, you could try to use this:

Wrap part where URL should be showed in postbit, and of course change x with appropriate usergroup. I think this should work.

Thanks! Does $post[usergroupid] work on vb3 as well?

I'm not sure if there's a correlation or not, but after I updated from vB 4.0.x to 4.1.3, there seems to be more bots spamming my forum. Am I the only one, or did anyone else experience this as well?

Yes, it should. Just use without vb:if, use only if.

Yup, will use in array as well.

Great mod thank you..has stopped over a 1000 spammers in 3 months.

Since the upgrade to 4.1.3 from 4.1 though I have noticed that the Ban user and report as spammer options are gone from the user profile that is access from the Acp.
You used to be able to submit the user as a spammer and ban them at the same time...that was a great feature...any chance that is being worked on?

Thanks again for a great mod

Profile banning options were removed in version 2 if not earlier so its been gone for a long time. See the FAQ on the first page first post for more information.

:confused:

Try re-installing the mod, perhaps it was not installed correctly. Instructions can be found in the readme file.

You're a life saver! Thank you! :p

I think this is probably the single best spam preventing hack I've ever used. Great job!

Thanks :)

I recently moved the forum to a new server. I have been using GlowHost-Spam-O-Matic. It was working fine until I moved the site to the new server. So, I tried uninstalling and re-installing the latest version of Spam-O-Matic. I am still getting many spam attempts to register per day. How can I get this resolved?

If you use the same web host, just a different server, would ask them what is different about the server configuration. Otherwise you would need to provide error messages. its pretty impossible to say without more information.

What if you or one of your MODs accidently banned somebody via this MOD? Can you request for the IP, User Name, Email to be taken out of the databases?

I personally don't want to ban somebody legit and then denied at another site.

You can talk to the maintainers of the database at stopforumspam.com

I'd just like to thank you guys for making this plugin. You are lifesavers. my forums are alive! thank you soooo much, it works like a charm.

Thank you :D

I just disabled this for kicks today to see what effect, if any, it would have. Within just a few hours I had over 20 baidu spiders, haven't seen that number in quite some time (small site)

Did disabling this Mod have any effect on that, or is this just a coincidence?

FYI, this addon and similar ones are incompatible with the new vbulletin mobile suite. They prevent users from registering.