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For several months I've been dealing with tons of SPAM (3-15 SPAM post per day). My forum is small AND nearly dead. It is literally me and a few friends left posting. So, even with very little traffic, I was still getting a good deal of SPAM.

So, I started working on a plugin to combat the crap posts. It was fairly easy because the one thing in common for these posts to begin with was a link in the title (in most cases the title was the link). So I made a quick plugin to Goodbye Spammer anybody who posted a link in the thread title (who also qualified for GB Spammer).

Soon, the spammers altered their methods to posting links in the post, so I modified the plugin to automatically GBS anybody who posted a link in their first 10 posts (not feasible for most forums, I know, but I have like one legit sign-up a week, maybe).

Then the spammers started posting threads and then returning to edit links into the title/thread so I adjusted for that.

Now a few weeks after my last adjustment, I am seeing zero SPAM on my forum AND my plugin is hardly ever banning anyone either :s

So, it seems to me that when spammers successfully pop a link on your board and get a click, they "mark it on a list" and target it more heavily. Whereas when they spend time on posting SPAM to your site and get no results then they move on?

Anyone have any experience or data on the subject. Is it a fluke or is that the way it works?

That seems to be a new method indeed. On my board i reduced the time frame for editing own posts for new users drastically and it doesn't get spammed much.

We have a limit on editing time for registered, but I can't remember what it is.

As an update, still haven't had SPAM since writing this. My auto-ban plugin has only nabbed like 3-5 spammers during that time.

I give 5 minutes to edit a post, with a stern warning to consider carefully what you post as permanent and to feel free to post again with further explanations/retractions, etc. Long edit times destroy forum continuity.

(2018-07-02, 04:17 PM)Wildcard Wrote: [ -> ]For several months I've been dealing with tons of SPAM (3-15 SPAM post per day). My forum is small AND nearly dead. It is literally me and a few friends left posting. So, even with very little traffic, I was still getting a good deal of SPAM.

So, I started working on a plugin to combat the crap posts. It was fairly easy because the one thing in common for these posts to begin with was a title in the link (in most cases the title was the link). So I made a quick plugin to Goodbye Spammer anybody who posted a link in the thread title (who also qualified for GB Spammer).

Soon, the spammers altered their methods to posting links in the post, so I modified the plugin to automatically GBS anybody who posted a link in their first 10 posts (not feasible for most forums, I know, but I have like one legit sign-up a week, maybe).

Then the spammers started posting threads and then returning to edit links into the title/thread so I adjusted for that.

Now a few weeks after my last adjustment, I am seeing zero SPAM on my forum AND my plugin is hardly ever banning anyone either :s

So, it seems to me that when spammers successfully pop a link on your board and get a click, they "mark it on a list" and target it more heavily. Whereas when they spend time on posting SPAM to your site and get no results then they move on?

Anyone have any experience or data on the subject. Is it a fluke or is that the way it works?

I am using a customized Spam Block plugin that does similar things that you have mentioned.

Here's a screenshot of that plugin.



Then the plugin settings screenshot.



The key to the success of this plugin is to understand how those spammers use the wording in their spam/carding posts.

Look at the Ban Words/Phrases part. You can see the beginning of that long list of words/phrases that we have noticed a pattern with those spam/carding posts.
That list is ever changing because those people who create the bots are always changing the wording of their spam/carding posts. 

Most of those spam/carding postings are done by bots, however, it's the human person that will initially create a new account and pass the email verification.

It's impossible to distinguish those from real legit users. Then those humans will activate the bots and that's where our plugin does the job.

We have installed a new plugin called Trash Bin that will take all of those purged threads/posts (put in the Tools & Maintenance section of AdminCP) that was done by the Spam Block plugin and we will review to make sure that the plugin did not accidentally purge a legit post. 

Just another step that us Staff have to do to assure that our legit users are not being "punished" for something they did not do. 

After all of that, I would estimate that this plan that we have has cut down about 90% of the spam/carding posts that we used to get. 
There will always be a few that slip through the cracks, but we can handle those now because the numbers are far smaller and easier to control.

That looks like a great plugin to have. Thanks for sharing.