You know, this really annoys me. I’m being swamped with fake registrations, and as usual, I search online, and there is just no help for what must be an incredibly common problem. Just the usual mess of outdated information, now-defunct plugins, and contradictory advice.
Why is so difficult just to have a straightforward solution for this kind of thing? Here’s one right now: in the normal registration page, add a site-relevant question that the admin sets that has to be answered and approved by the admin before the registration is allowed. Simple!
But can I find a simple solution like that? NO.
Please, can someone help.
Yes, and I get lots of topics with people asking similar questions and getting no answers. It’s incredible that no organised solutions have appeared to get rid of what is obviously a common problem. All it is is a lot of vague advice about using this plugin or that plugin with no follow up or real answers.
This place really needs some leadership and some organisation!
Right, I’ve installed Wanguard and it seems to have identified some spam registrations effectively. I’ll be back to this thread with an update so hopefully someone else can not avoid having to go through the runaround I did.
Thanks for the reply Sam and forgive my frustration, but I get very annoyed at the way we have these tools available, but they are just being hacked to pieces right out of the box by spammers. For the relatively non-technical, it’s a madhouse.
A day has passed and the flood of spam registrations seems to have completely stopped. So far I’m very impressed with Wangguard. For a start, it does one simple thing which the default installation of bbPress should do – it allows me to pose a question to new registrars that has to answered correctly to proceed. Seems so simple, but it took me ages to find something that would allow me to do that.
I really don’t understand why like bbPress doesn’t have basic tools included that can stop the inevitable wave of spam registrations that happen to every new bbPress user. It’s just an endless waste of time for everyone who has to go through the same process of frustration, every time.
not really fair to blame the bbpress developers (free software made by volunteers) for not having every possible feature built into core, all forum apps (phpbb, etc) that i am aware of require separate anti-spam plugins
bbpress itself is just a plugin for wordpress, so anti-spam is more a wordpress problem than only a bbpress problem, and there are many anti-spam wordpress plugins out there, and dealing with spammers & bots etc is a BIG topic, and a continually evolving battle for anyone running any sort of website…
otherwise, i think it would help keep this forum orderly if there were a sticky or somesuch with a maintained list of commonly requested bbpress plugins like anti-spam, polls, custom avatars, granular membership permissions, etc
here are the wordpress anti-spam plugins i mentioned in the other topic, all work well with bbpress, start with wangguard which is the easiest to use, all require careful config and monitoring to make sure they are functioning properly
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wangguard/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/bad-behavior/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/stop-spammer-registrations-plugin/
sam
these anti-spammer and security plugins look interesting too, but i have not tested them myself, they should work fine with bbpress but always test carefully for possible confilicts with other plugins you are using, especially plugins that have similar functionality
https://wordpress.org/plugins/avh-first-defense-against-spam/
and wordpress security is a bigger topic than just dealing with spammers, but sorting out the specifics is up to you 🙂
https://codex.wordpress.org/Hardening_WordPress
http://premium.wpmudev.org/blog/keeping-wordpress-secure-the-ultimate-guide/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/bulletproof-security/
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/security
https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/wordpress-security
sam
Thankyou Sam. So far Wangguard seems to be working (fingers crossed). While I certainly don’t blame the developers, it does seem crazy that so much time and energy is repeatedly wasted when newbies have to go through the same convoluted processes time and again every time they come up against such common problems. Or that simple things like asking a question on registration are not built into the basic installation.
A simple page on this site or in the documentation called How to Deal with the Inevitable Spam, that is kept updated would, for example, be a good start.
Many thanks for all those links by the way. I know some of this stuff but it’s a class that never ends.
A pox on all spammers!
Just coming back to this thread to report that Wannguard seems to have done the trick and I haven’t had any spam registration problems since I installed it. Yay!
Hi,
Try to implement the Anti-bot questions so that automated registrations can be avoided..
Hi there, any luck in finding a replacement for Wanguard? I was about to install it, but found out it no longer is up and running. Shame, so much great feedback, seemed like an awesome plugin. Anyways, look forward in hearing back from you.
not tested (I manually approve new users, but that is just because of the type of sites I run) but this might help
Stop Spammers
