UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Suggestions and Feedback Delete AND Ban

We're seeing a small amount of spam on our new UBB7 forum. I don't know that it will really help to ban the IPs, but I'd like to try anyhow. The problem is, this is an arduous process at best. Deleting is already 3 clicks (Edit -> Delete -> Yes I'm Sure). I then also need to copy the IP before I delete, then go to CP -> Member Management-> Ban List, paste it, and save.

That's not an insane amount of work, but it's more than I'd like. How about a Delete And Ban option? If this is only exposed from the Edit area, ok, but even better would be to have this on the main page (when logged in as an Admin, of course). Then we'd be down to two clicks -> Delete+Ban -> Yes I'm sure.

Think that's possible, and a good idea? I'd certainly love to see it.

Banning an ip directly is in most times completely foolish; most ISP's give out IP's on a dynamic (ever changing) basis and not on a static (forever non-changing) basis. This means that yes, your ip ban will work great until the users ip changes through their isp (56k is common, change every time you connect, however cable/dsl would update every month or so when the modem reconnects, etc).

It's a great idea, but banning an IP directly isn't really a way to ban users on a permanent basis; now if you where to ban the isp alltogether it would solve issues (most ISP's own a specific class of ip's)

So you could ban:
Class A (not recommended): 192.%
Class B (not recommended): 192.168.%
Class C (would be recommended): 192.168.1.%
Class D (or direct IP ban): 192.168.1.1

As stated before, most ISP's have several classes that belong soley to them, so if one wanted to ban them completely they would ban their class C's, but you'd only know speficically if a class c belonged to them by a user signing up from it.

You may also ban "free" email addresses (hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc) which generally is a sweet spot to deny spammers (however you'll notice that a lot of them are not standard free email addresses, web.de is one that i get hit by a lot).

7.1 should help stop automated spambots due to the CAPTCHA however it won't stop actual people (that is unless they can't read the captcha values lol)

banning an entire ISP isn't such a hot idea, either. Unless you plan to ban all of AOL, or all of (fill in the name of a huge isp here) and then alienating all of these potential users.

Same with email addresses.

You'll never prevent spam posts entirely, there is simply so much money to be made in comment spam that someone will always be willing to find a way to spam. The best thing you can do is make it a slow enough process posting to your board that the spammer will not make any money at it, and will move on to an easier mark.

Disable guest posting. Require registration. Require email address verification. Temporarily turn on registration moderation. Turn it on and off now and then. Especially during off hours or hours that you're getting spammed most. Make it tough for an automated bot to have a run of your board. None of these spammers are actually sitting there posting. There is no money in that. These are bots that are earning someone money while they are off doing something else. If you can break their little automated patters you can prevent most of it.

'eh I was more poking fun of the small isp's that no one ever signs up from that the occasional spammer will come from, like isp.ru lol... Not to mention I was also pointing out that banning one single ip is futile

I find 'Require email address verification' - the best option (along with registration required to post) - I must get 4 or 5 attempts to sign up from bots - most have a .ru email address.

The only spam we do get is from genuine users - who sign up and then post a message to 10 different forums - sadly it takes a while to go and delete them. We need a box on show users posts that allow us to select multiple messages and delete them in one go

IIRC classic had a tool capable of finding all posts by a user then purge all results

I'm well aware of how IPs work - as it is, banning them is really the only option to try to prevent anything. We HAVE seen repeat IP spams, and IPs aren't nearly as dynamic as they once were. If the IP Ban List is part of UBB (and it is), why not make it more accessible?

We have no desire to require registration, and especially not email confirmation (I find boards that do that terribly annoying). Maybe that will result in more spam, but that's not really the issue here - I'm only hoping that banning can be made easier.

You'll find that most of my replies are in general, as in not just for the poster themselves, but also for users who will visit posts in the future looking for the same information.

Semi offtopic, but 7.1 (currently in beta) has a CAPTCHA system built in, its abilities include guest postings so that will be one way to aid in spambots if you don't require registration or email verification. Additionally the CAPTCHA will cover the registration system to help aid in bot registrations.