I have a website showcasing my essays on oh-so-brilliant on the hot-button issues that includes a phpbb message board here:http://squeakywheelsblog.com/comments/
It’s so clean in that it’s certainly uncontaminated by relevant posts, but pathetic as that may be, I’m mainly upset about all the people going on and starting topics just to post bad jokes or dubious links to celebrity porn or other incomprehensible crapola. Just look at the category IN GENERAL and you’ll see what has accumulated over just the past few days.
My questions are:
How are they finding me?
Is there some kind of program that allows them to create posts and threads automatically? When I see posts that go, “What a lovely website! I’ve always been interested in IN GENERAL and I want to learn more”, It makes me wonder.
Is there any way to block this kind of crap? I’m thinking of barring the posting of links, but I can’t even figure out how to do that.
I’d bet on Google et. al. indexing your site, then someone scraping results for “comments/viewtopic.php” or other things indicative of bulletin boards.
People are able to log on as a guest. I don’t know how to restrict it to registered users and would worry that that would deter some people from posting.
I don’t have any advice on preventing spam other than to contact tech support, but you have a lot of forums with nothing in them. If I were you, I would replace all of them with one forum for commenting on the essays. Posters can link to the appropriate essay. Then other forums can be created later depending on readers’ wants. No one likes posting in a dead forum.
It’s a commomn problem with message boards. I run a large vBulletin board. It has been a while since I used phpbb.
Here’s what I do:
Turn off posting by guests. Veiwing by guests is OK. This will then require anyone who wants to post to register.
Turn on ‘Captcha’ if you have it. This will prevent automated registrations.
Moderate registrations i.e. you approve membership: You will be able to see the IP and email address of all sign-ups. A lot of these spammers use email addresses that are a dead giveaway like ‘jokes@freejokes4u.info’. You decline them. Check IPs and deny any that seem iffy.
Put the following domains into your ‘Banned email address’ box: