Author Topic: Dealing with user spam (Read 9052 times)

EmberMike · « **on:** August 04, 2013, 09:20 »

I'm starting to get a concerning number of spam user registrations every day, and they are happening with increasing frequency. It started with just a few, progressing to a dozen overnight. Before this gets out of control I'd like to try and stop it.

I was running the Bad Behavior plugin but had to deactivate it because it was blocking my PayPal transactions from completing. Is anyone running Bad Behavior with whitelist settings that work with PayPal?

Any other user spam tools you'd recommend?

Ron · « **Reply #1 on:** August 04, 2013, 09:24 »

Anti captcha has stopped it dead for me

cathyslife · « **Reply #2 on:** August 04, 2013, 11:00 »

Quote from: Ron on August 04, 2013, 09:24

Anti captcha has stopped it dead for me

I looked into anti captcha and even installed it, but I don't like that there isn't any interface. How do you know it isn't stopping good registrations from happening? I couldn't find anywhere that listed what had been deleted. Did I miss something? I would much rather be able to monitor what has been caught/deleted than not knowing anything and trusting it's doing its job. Go ahead, call me paranoid.

Ron · « **Reply #3 on:** August 04, 2013, 11:39 »

Its not stopping real registrations because I have done a test, and both users were able to have a perfect registration and check out flow. Plus all comments are assembled in the spam folder where you can check them before emptying the spam folder with one click.

cathyslife · « **Reply #4 on:** August 04, 2013, 11:48 »

Quote from: Ron on August 04, 2013, 11:39

Its not stopping real registrations because I have done a test, and both users were able to have a perfect registration and check out flow. Plus all comments are assembled in the spam folder where you can check them before emptying the spam folder with one click.

I have spam comments taken care of with akismet, I am just looking to stop spam registrations, but I think I will look for something that shows me what has been stopped. I'm not as trusting as you.

Ron · « **Reply #5 on:** August 04, 2013, 11:50 »

Thats what I said; its stopping spam registrations, not the real ones.

Its stopping both spam regs and comments.

LesPalenik · « **Reply #6 on:** August 04, 2013, 12:06 »

There are email registrations and there are spam comments.
So far, I received only some registrations and fortunately no comments.
I think, my wordpress installation has some automatic captcha that accepts the user registrations but doesn't allow to continue with comments.
If anybody feels like testing it, go ahead and try to enter a comment on my site. I'll report back.

Where are the registrations stored, and how to delete them?

cathyslife · « **Reply #7 on:** August 04, 2013, 12:51 »

Quote from: LesPalenik on August 04, 2013, 12:06

There are email registrations and there are spam comments.
So far, I received only some registrations and fortunately no comments.
I think, my wordpress installation has some automatic captcha that accepts the user registrations but doesn't allow to continue with comments.
If anybody feels like testing it, go ahead and try to enter a comment on my site. I'll report back.

Where are the registrations stored, and how to delete them?

In the left hand column, click Users>All Users. There is a list. You can keep or delete as you wish.

djpadavona · « **Reply #8 on:** August 04, 2013, 14:52 »

Yet another reason why I can't stand forcing Registrations. It just opens your site up to more spam. Basically everyday I need to delete 5 to 10 emails alerting me that I've had a new "registration", and about 40 more spam posts which Askimet catches. Great fun.

BTW how do you kill the email notifications? I don't need to know every time someone (or some bot) registers.

cathyslife · « **Reply #9 on:** August 04, 2013, 15:56 »

Quote from: djpadavona on August 04, 2013, 14:52

Yet another reason why I can't stand forcing Registrations. It just opens your site up to more spam. Basically everyday I need to delete 5 to 10 emails alerting me that I've had a new "registration", and about 20 more spam posts which Askimet catches. Great fun.

BTW how do you kill the email notifications? I don't need to know every time someone (or some bot) registers.

Maybe remove your email from Symbiostock>Settings>Correspondence Email? Heres what that says:

Settings — Email Settings Correspondence Email — The specific email address your site will use in sending automated messages to customer, and what they will respond to if they wish.
You may notice that when Symbiostock installs, a little email plugin is installed as well. If you deactivate this plugin, your Symbiostock correspondence system will break. Wordpress requires a plugin to change email settings for some reason. You an pre-write customer welcome and thank you email messages on the Settings page.

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #10 on:** August 06, 2013, 02:56 »

Hi Cathy
Anti-Captcha stopped my spam registrations dead - I have had other symbiostock members and "paying" customers registering since then

Nikd90 · « **Reply #11 on:** August 06, 2013, 06:27 »

Anti captcha is not working for me. I am getting at least 2-3 spam comments from my contact us page

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #12 on:** August 06, 2013, 06:36 »

Anti captcha is for registrations - try something like Contact Form With Captcha by Teqlog for comments

Nikd90 · « **Reply #13 on:** August 06, 2013, 06:38 »

I have both.

djpadavona · « **Reply #14 on:** August 06, 2013, 09:13 »

Make sure you install Askimet. Askimet catches on average 40 to 50 spam comments per day for me.

cathyslife · « **Reply #15 on:** August 06, 2013, 09:52 »

Quote from: djpadavona on August 06, 2013, 09:13

Make sure you install Askimet. Askimet catches on average 40 to 50 spam comments per day for me.

Yes, i deleted 172 spams a couple of days ago. Which brings up a question...on each of those spams, to the right, was one of my photos, as tho the spam is a comment on a photo. But i have been turning off comments and pingbacks in the image upload window. Can anyone explain why? Is there another setting somewhere i have missed?

djpadavona · « **Reply #16 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:08 »

I turned off photo comments too, but I get them everyday and can't make the comment box go away. The blog page doesn't work correctly either. I have my Page of Posts set at maximum 6 posts shown per page, but it shows all 30+. The Related Posts widget seems to be incompatible too, which is shame because that is a great widget which I've always used on my blogs.

Leo Blanchette · « **Reply #17 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:11 »

Spam is a sign of health. Djp I haven't forgotten about you

ShazamImages · « **Reply #18 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:14 »

Quote from: djpadavona on August 06, 2013, 12:08

I turned off photo comments too, but I get them everyday...

djpadavona:

I just went to your site and looked at an image and there is a link to "Leave a comment" on the right-hand side under the similar images and web links.

Underneath that there is another section called "Leave a Reply" that has fields for Name, Email, Website, & Comment.

That might explain why you are getting a lot of spam...

ShazamImages · « **Reply #19 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:16 »

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 06, 2013, 09:52

Yes, i deleted 172 spams a couple of days ago. Which brings up a question...on each of those spams, to the right, was one of my photos, as tho the spam is a comment on a photo. But i have been turning off comments and pingbacks in the image upload window. Can anyone explain why? Is there another setting somewhere i have missed?

I tried to take a look at your website, but I couldn't get in after about 10 tries.

cascoly · « **Reply #20 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:56 »

Quote from: djpadavona on August 04, 2013, 14:52

Yet another reason why I can't stand forcing Registrations. It just opens your site up to more spam. Basically everyday I need to delete 5 to 10 emails alerting me that I've had a new "registration", and about 40 more spam posts which Askimet catches. Great fun.

BTW how do you kill the email notifications? I don't need to know every time someone (or some bot) registers.

I send all ongoing notifications from msagencies to my junk folder in outlook -- I can then just browse to see if anything is important & then empty the junk folder with 1 click

I do that for symbio, too

i'd suggested earlier having a priority system for symbio emails

each type of message gets a code from say 1 to 10, 10 being least important

individual owners can then set their level, say 3, and messages over 3 wont get sent. that way the emals are still there if someone needs to test

cathyslife · « **Reply #21 on:** August 06, 2013, 12:58 »

Quote from: ShazamImages on August 06, 2013, 12:16

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 06, 2013, 09:52
Yes, i deleted 172 spams a couple of days ago. Which brings up a question...on each of those spams, to the right, was one of my photos, as tho the spam is a comment on a photo. But i have been turning off comments and pingbacks in the image upload window. Can anyone explain why? Is there another setting somewhere i have missed?

I tried to take a look at your website, but I couldn't get in after about 10 tries.

Thanks for trying to take a look. I will go see whats going on but my first guess is bluehost.

Edit:my site is down but a clients is not. Clearly they are having issues (still). Might have to make a switch this weekend.

cathyslife · « **Reply #22 on:** August 06, 2013, 14:01 »

Looks like my site is back up.

ShazamImages · « **Reply #23 on:** August 06, 2013, 14:12 »

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 06, 2013, 09:52

Quote from: djpadavona on August 06, 2013, 09:13
Make sure you install Askimet. Askimet catches on average 40 to 50 spam comments per day for me.

Yes, i deleted 172 spams a couple of days ago. Which brings up a question...on each of those spams, to the right, was one of my photos, as tho the spam is a comment on a photo. But i have been turning off comments and pingbacks in the image upload window. Can anyone explain why? Is there another setting somewhere i have missed?

I took a look at your website and didn't see anywhere to add a comment. So I then did a Google search and found this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acathyslifestockphotos.com+comment&oq=site%3Acathyslifestockphotos.com+comment&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.2844j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

cathyslife · « **Reply #24 on:** August 06, 2013, 15:20 »

Quote from: ShazamImages on August 06, 2013, 14:12

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 06, 2013, 09:52
Quote from: djpadavona on August 06, 2013, 09:13
Make sure you install Askimet. Askimet catches on average 40 to 50 spam comments per day for me.

Yes, i deleted 172 spams a couple of days ago. Which brings up a question...on each of those spams, to the right, was one of my photos, as tho the spam is a comment on a photo. But i have been turning off comments and pingbacks in the image upload window. Can anyone explain why? Is there another setting somewhere i have missed?

I took a look at your website and didn't see anywhere to add a comment. So I then did a Google search and found this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Acathyslifestockphotos.com+comment&oq=site%3Acathyslifestockphotos.com+comment&aqs=chrome.0.69i57j69i58.2844j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Thanks for looking. Apparently when i reloaded the themes after bluehosts crashes, something has gotten changed somewhere. Guess i need to go thru all my settings...must get rid of that royalty-free content. I dont know...i keep getting all these weird changes to my website. I thought i was done with the setup.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Dealing with user spam (Read 9052 times)

EmberMike

Ron

cathyslife

Ron

cathyslife

Ron

LesPalenik

cathyslife

djpadavona

cathyslife

Kerioak~Christine

Nikd90

Kerioak~Christine

Nikd90

djpadavona

cathyslife

djpadavona

Leo Blanchette

ShazamImages

ShazamImages

cascoly

cathyslife

cathyslife

ShazamImages

cathyslife

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors