Disallowed emails

[fylliska]

Several times a day I get someone wanting to join with a variation of this email address: [email protected]. The periods are in different places each time. I have banned
j.a.ckst.a.d.anfe*
j.a.c.k.s.ta.d.anfe*
ja.ckst.a.d.anfe*
Do I have to ban every variation? Or is there something clever that I can do?

I guess I can take note of the IP next time and ban that. Anything else?

[dragonexpert]

You could potentially ban all gmail emails with *@gmail.com, but that would also block many legitimate users. An IP Range ban is what I'd recommend instead.

[laie_techie]

I've advocated before about a way to standardize email addresses (while maintaining the way they entered it) in order to avoid duplicate accounts or bypassing the ban filters.

Perhaps the best way would be to add a hook to is_email_banned (found in functions.php) so we can manipulate the passed in email or provide more complicated filtering.

[HostDash]

You could potentially ban all gmail emails with *@gmail.com, but that would also block many legitimate users. An IP Range ban is what I'd recommend instead.

I wouldn't ban *@gmail.com considering the number of legitimate users. Implementing something to ban 'variations' is also a little tricky considering you could also block legitimate users in the process regardless of how low the chance is.

Banning the IP / IP range would be best to start and work from there.

[Ircher]

DONT U DARE BAN *@gmail.com - i bet atleast 60% of ur customers use gmail!!! that would be the DUMBEST MOVE you would ever make if did!!!!

[Dave H]

I ran a forum with gmail and all other known freemail domains (several thousand of them) banned for years. Later I used more sophisticated/surgical anti-spam measures. There were some grumbles while freemails were banned, but it seems like nearly all freemail users were able to come up with an alternate address to get registered. The total number of active users has been about the same with and without that ban.

So I would still avoid banning all of gmail in the long run, banning it for a few days for your troublesome poster to loose interest may not be a big deal. Although if something as simple as an IP ban will work, then use that.

[Sazze]

Just IP ban him.