Banning Spammers

[surfer]

I have been to many different forums and one of the problems are spammers who are just posting porn sites. They make a lot of usernames and then post the same website over and over again. Some of the sites do remove the posts but not the usernames. Other sites ban the IP address of the username who just spams the forum.

So how do you ban an IP address? Is it different in different platforms or is it just a program that will work on all forum platforms?

[fight4glory]

You ban the IP through the forums software, so it depends if you have a vB or IPB or whatever else. Usually there's a ban setting that you will find.

[fotog]

You can for most forums, ban from IP/email address and user name. This tends to be a pain sometimes with certain forums. I know that phpbb allows all three to be ban, however if you delete the user after banning them, somehow they are let back in (not sure the fault on that but its a biggie from what I hear).

[encoder]

Thanks for that answers. I now know that different kind of forums have different ways of banning people. But is there a way to ban people who have dynamic IP address? Or the forum owner would just delete that username and IP address all the time?

[surfer]

Hey encoder, don't steal my thread.

I was thinking the same thing as what encoder just said. But in addition to that, is there a specific program that could be integrated in the forum for it to ban unwanted posters?

[Saaverda]

I made a text file that had 3 admin boards worth of email addresses and entire domains to past into the ban field for vb. It seems to have helped a lot on the forums that use it.

What kind of board are you using that you want to ban people from?

[alexis]

Originally Posted by surfer

Hey encoder, don't steal my thread.

I was thinking the same thing as what encoder just said. But in addition to that, is there a specific program that could be integrated in the forum for it to ban unwanted posters?

I wouldn't even know where to go with that. I have heard from someone just recently that is new to the forum work, but is a coder, was playing around with phpnuke for his phpbb forums, but to try and get the avatar thing to work. Wonder if there is a program you could custom to do what you are asking, rather than having to make your own. So far the only I know that keeps forums clean is good moderators and admin.

I love it when spammers post something in a foreign language too, doesn't make any sense. A couple of times I have seen this, in Spanish which I took in HS ended up translating into nothing really, gibberish, but still quite funny.

[Arizona]

On my vBulletin I use two different methods to stop spam. To sign up they have to answer th CAPTCHA and then I have installed Akismet. When Akismet detects a spam message it moves it to a moderation que. I can then just delete the user and message. The forum users never see a spam message on the board and everyone is happy.