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Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166935]

Wed, 04 April 2012 17:22

Nux
Messages: 9
Registered: April 2012

Karma: 0

Junior Member

Hi,

I'm getting really really annoyed at profile spammers (they just register, set a homepage/URL and that's it, just to get some back-links). Is there any tricks on discouraging this?
Also, the registration is page is too bloated. Can I bring it back to the core/mandatory fields? Or at least I really really want to remove the homepage field.

Suggestions?

Thanks!

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166936 is a reply to message #166935]

Wed, 04 April 2012 17:29

naudefj

Messages: 3775
Registered: December 2004

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Yes, also noticed it!
The next release, if I get to it, should fix this problem.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166937 is a reply to message #166936]

Wed, 04 April 2012 17:40

Nux
Messages: 9
Registered: April 2012

Karma: 0

Junior Member

naudefj,

Any ETA on this one?
Any workaround till that happens?

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166954 is a reply to message #166937]

Mon, 09 April 2012 07:42

naudefj

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1. When I get time or someone else starts helping out.

2. You can delete them. Most will be auto deleted after a while as they seldom confirm their e-mail addresses.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166955 is a reply to message #166954]

Mon, 09 April 2012 07:54

Nux

Messages: 9
Registered: April 2012

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Junior Member

naudefj wrote on Mon, 09 April 2012 03:42

2. You can delete them. Most will be auto deleted after a while as they seldom confirm their e-mail addresses.

Interesting, is there any way to tune how often the auto-delete runs? Ideally I'd like something like half an hour or so. I don't want to end up manually deleting them (which is what I'm doing now).

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166956 is a reply to message #166955]

Mon, 09 April 2012 10:52

naudefj

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Registered: December 2004

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Unconfirmed User Expiry:
The number of days unconfirmed forum members are held in the database. They will be removed from the database after this period of time.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166957 is a reply to message #166956]

Mon, 09 April 2012 11:51

Nux

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Registered: April 2012

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Junior Member

Thanks.. Any way to get that down to hours?

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166969 is a reply to message #166957]

Tue, 10 April 2012 13:07

naudefj

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Enter it as a fraction?

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166972 is a reply to message #166969]

Tue, 10 April 2012 16:43

Nux

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Junior Member

Cheers, will try that.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166975 is a reply to message #166972]

Wed, 11 April 2012 11:33

naudefj

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Here is a SQL script to remove users with a URL in the profile, but without any posts:

DELETE FROM fud_users WHERE posted_msg_count = 0 AND LOWER(home_page) LIKE 'http%';

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #166976 is a reply to message #166935]

Wed, 11 April 2012 11:48

Nux
Messages: 9
Registered: April 2012

Karma: 0

Junior Member

Thanks a lot for that, it works.
There's a slight modification I needed to do as the table name is fud30_users in my case.
For anyone else interested, you can automate this via crontab, just add a new job like this:

*/30 * * * * mysql -uDATABASEUSER -pPASSWORD DATABASENAME -e "DELETE FROM fud30_users WHERE posted_msg_count = 0 AND LOWER(home_page) LIKE 'http%';"

The above command will run every 30 minutes, deleting users with a homepage set and no messages; most likely profile spammers.
This may prove useful in the future as many profile spammers are actually human beings so captchas won't work.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #167055 is a reply to message #166976]

Thu, 19 April 2012 11:42

naudefj

Messages: 3775
Registered: December 2004

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Here is a patch that will prevent users from specifying a home page if they cannot post links: http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/fudforum/changeset/5446

Also see "Messages Before Allowing Links" in the ACP Settings Manager.

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Re: Profile SPAM & profile fields [message #167056 is a reply to message #167055]

Thu, 19 April 2012 13:12

Nux
Messages: 9
Registered: April 2012

Karma: 0

Junior Member

Thanks, I'll try that when I get some time. In the meantime that cronjob works like a charm!

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