vBulletin Mods

Well, yes, it could be useful for all if it is programmed into mod.

For start, you could try to use this:

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

Wrap part where URL should be showed in postbit, and of course change x with appropriate usergroup. I think this should work.

Thanks! Does $post[usergroupid] work on vb3 as well?

I'm not sure if there's a correlation or not, but after I updated from vB 4.0.x to 4.1.3, there seems to be more bots spamming my forum. Am I the only one, or did anyone else experience this as well?

Yes, it should. Just use without vb:if, use only if.

Yup, will use in array as well.

Great mod thank you..has stopped over a 1000 spammers in 3 months.

Since the upgrade to 4.1.3 from 4.1 though I have noticed that the Ban user and report as spammer options are gone from the user profile that is access from the Acp.
You used to be able to submit the user as a spammer and ban them at the same time...that was a great feature...any chance that is being worked on?

Thanks again for a great mod

Profile banning options were removed in version 2 if not earlier so its been gone for a long time. See the FAQ on the first page first post for more information.

:confused:

Try re-installing the mod, perhaps it was not installed correctly. Instructions can be found in the readme file.

You're a life saver! Thank you! :p

I think this is probably the single best spam preventing hack I've ever used. Great job!

Thanks :)

I recently moved the forum to a new server. I have been using GlowHost-Spam-O-Matic. It was working fine until I moved the site to the new server. So, I tried uninstalling and re-installing the latest version of Spam-O-Matic. I am still getting many spam attempts to register per day. How can I get this resolved?

If you use the same web host, just a different server, would ask them what is different about the server configuration. Otherwise you would need to provide error messages. its pretty impossible to say without more information.

What if you or one of your MODs accidently banned somebody via this MOD? Can you request for the IP, User Name, Email to be taken out of the databases?

I personally don't want to ban somebody legit and then denied at another site.

You can talk to the maintainers of the database at stopforumspam.com

I'd just like to thank you guys for making this plugin. You are lifesavers. my forums are alive! thank you soooo much, it works like a charm.

Thank you :D

I just disabled this for kicks today to see what effect, if any, it would have. Within just a few hours I had over 20 baidu spiders, haven't seen that number in quite some time (small site)

Did disabling this Mod have any effect on that, or is this just a coincidence?

FYI, this addon and similar ones are incompatible with the new vbulletin mobile suite. They prevent users from registering.

A LOT of my users are getting "registration denied" error messages.

Can you explain why?
They are answering all the right questions, and I even undid "re-Captcha" to make it easier.

Here is their email address: [email protected]
Could that be it?

Please let me know, as I really appreciate your program.
Thank you


- Edith Williams
[email protected]

Hi,
I have not received a response to my questions from you. Can you help?
I asked twice before - no response from developer.

Glowhost is not allowing anyone to register - they are all being noted as "spammers"
Is it because they have a @yahoo.com email address? That is not on my "blocked users" list..
Could it be something else?
- Edith Williams

Sounds like a problem then with the way vB mobile renders pages.

Did you expect there to be a toll-free number with 24/7 support for a free vBulletin mod? It's only been 15 hours since your last post. Which in my time zone was Sunday night at 10 PM. When most people are sleeping. Now it is Monday when most people are going to work.

Lets get the terms straight.

GlowHost is a web hosting company. It has nothing to do with your forum, registrations, or denied registrations.

GlowHost sponsors development and support for this spam firewall / mod which is called "Spam-O-Matic."

Look in your Spam-O-Matic log to see why they are being flagged as spammers. Then look at your settings and adjust them accordingly.

GlowHost-

Great mod, thanks! I just installed it over the weekend. I followed your instructions but don't see anything in the statistics section at the bottom of the forum webpage. Could that just be because there haven't been any attempts to register by spammers yet? I checked all of the display settings in admincp and they are set to "Yes". I also did a search prior to posting this question, as I realize you're busy, but it didn't turn up anything on this subject. I'm assuming that once the attacks start coming (we had a few prior to the installation) that the statistics section will begin showing information but until then it's just left empty, the thought being that empty is better than a lot of zeroes. Yes?

Thanks again!

Its possible that you don't have any spammers yet, but it usually fills up within the first 24 hours. You can check in the logs to see if there is any activity in there.

Ok thank you for the guidance. There weren't any entries in the GlowHost log in the admincp, so that confirms my initial suspicions.

Again, thank you for creating this mod!

after it spammed my footer with a link to your site i have removed the mod.. two identical links side by side. went back to vb bad behavior.. uses honeypot and they don't want any money from me or to put links in my footer. liked what i was reading about this one.. oh well.. just saw the post on it breaking prevent double posts as well.
I did like the auto mod features and stuff but the whole link in my footer... not even a warning.. go to go to my admin log-in and there it was. now I see it as just a ploy to advertise for free and make money off of sites for protection(even though you can select free)<that part was cool. I would have contributed later when i could afford it.. I'm willing to pay for a good product and would have shelled out a few bucks for this one. but I really hate feeling snookered..

You can remove the links in adminCP. I took one of the links out and kept the other to help support the mod designer for his "free" mod. I have had my site less than a month and already denied 80 people, it was worth the link on my site.

I am waiting for the next version so you can delete / report the sleepers as I do get a few to register.

Thanks GlowHost :D

This mod seems pretty great! However, it seems as though when a user includes an IMG (image/picture/photo) in their post, this will put their thread/post in the moderation queue. Obviously this is for newbie members. Is there any way of allowing newbie members to post images (using IMG tag/etc) but still block url links?

Thanks!

I looked on the mod info and it shows it works on "4.0.x". Has this been updated to support 4.1.3 and the mod info just not updated yet? Just wanted to be sure before trying to install the mod, it's seems like the perfect mod. I would really like to get to use it on my current site as I am currently getting hammered with sleeper accounts I would like to filter in a more automatic method.

Also has the dev approached VB about the problem with the Mobile suite by chance? Just wondering as I am running the mobile suite as well.

Thanks in advance for all you help and have a great evening.

Hello, could you explain more about what happens when it detects a spammer? What does it do with the account?

Also, I'm a little worried it might accidentally ban someone who is not actually a bot/spammer.

Working on my site 4.1.3, I don't have the Mobile suite, so I don't know. Rumor has it, next version you will be able to kill the sleeper accounts too.

Hi, can any one explain what are the upgrade instructions? Upload all files then overwrite plugin?

Hi guys,

Should I disable vBulletin's antispam option after installing your mod? It's the one that allows me to choose from deactivate, Askimet or Typepad Antispam Beta.

I'm asking becouse it's logical to think that it's making more queries for nothing and also becouse I'm seeing waaaaay too many posts marked for moderation since I installed Spam-O-Matic even when I configured for the minimum (but logical) setup. Maybe this has something to do?

Thanks ;)

correct.

anything else? I am using 1.27 and trying to upgrade to v2.. a bit more explanation would be good since I'm still quite new to all this and VB actually..

If you took a look at your settings, both links can be disabled. :rolleyes:

Not at this time. if there is an a href tag in the post for a newbie, it gets moderated based on your moderation settings.

I have not yet, but it is a problem with their mobile viewer since the mod uses the vB hooks system, if the mobile version is not honoring that, they need to fix it so that it does.

The readme file should have upgrade instructions.

Hi, I installed Spam-O-Matic on my forum. It stopped all the spam but it was not allowing any new users to register and calling them all spammers. I changed the setting "What should happen if the new registration is listed in the StopForumSpam database" to "Log and continue with registration" and now people can register, but I have started getting spam again. Could you tell me how I can fix this problem?
Thanks

Since I installed this a few weeks ago, it's caught over 1000 spammers and denied registration - it's great!

In the cases where the registration of a spammer is NOT caught by the automated check I usually get them before they have a chance to post anything and simply marked them as Banned Users. Often times the confirmation isn't even mailed back so I catch them there as well.

My question is, I'd like to give back and report those NOT caught to the maintainers of the database that Spam-O-Matic checks with. I record the username, email address, and reported IP address of each spammer that manages to get through the detection. I do't know if reporting these is worth while or not. I asked Glow Host this same question and they replied with an image of using the Moderation Tools and selecting the Spam-O-Matic radio button but that's assuming they got through and posted and I'm talking about those that get past the spam check but not by me and they never get to post.

Any email address of a POC I can get in touch with to submit this information to?

I believe Glow Host stated version 2.5 should allow you to report a sleeper. I am awaiting this update myself =]

Thank you. I'm sure it was asked/answered somewhere in the 63 previous pages but sifting through it all got to me after the first 20 or so. I don't know why Glow Host themselves couldn't have said that instead of directing me to some image showing the use of the Moderation Tools on an existing post when I wrote them. I just installed mine not log ago so I guess 2.0.2 is the latest and I'll have to wait.

Thanks again!

Hi Dale,

You could always read the FAQ instead of the 63 pages.

Sorry, it was me that sent you the image, there are 3 or 4 very redundant questions already addressed in the FAQ on the first page and I guess I missed the "NOT"part.Some of the users of this mod can't figure out how to use the mod tools thing to submit a spammer.

I thought that was your question and happened to have a screen shot available to answer what i thought was your question.

Please accept my apologies for not completely analyzing your private message. Just understand this is a free mod that covers a lot of forums and a lot of different skill levels in the technical department/forum admins.

What you want is scheduled. Thanks for posting this question again. I guess this question is on each of the 63 pages at least once. So hopefully people will start reading it. That or I will get tired of answering it and add this function. :)

Unfortunately coding addons is not our primary business and we have internal software updates that need "doing."

If I pull our programmers off our primary jobs to add functionality to this free mod, then it means out business has to wait on the cool things we are always adding for our internal customers.

That said, I have not forgotten about this function and it is on the list of updates for 2.5.

sorry, but there are no "proper upgrade instructions, or detailed explanation there either.. it'd be good it it had that for us new guys at vb..

What aren't you understanding...?
From the Readme:
You stated you had v 1.2.7 or something like that, you will need to perform this step.

The upload folder already contains folders that should match your forum structure...upload them here. If it asks to overwrite, do so.

Hope this is self-explanatory if you've been installing mods already.

All in all, its all in there, except the "overwrite files" but that is standard for upgrading mods...

I'm not sure what the deal is... I'm on vBulletin 4.1.3 and it's not working at all :( I have it running and working on v.3.8.6 (different version of this) and it works great, but spam is just flying in even with the keywords listed in the settings :(

This plugin by default will assume that people who write an @ symbol are posting links.
So if a new member says "@Glow, I love your mod!", it will flag that as spam and put it in the moderation queue. Or if they say "I had a great time @ Disney last weekend.", etc. Anything with an @ is spam.
But wait, there's a fix!
In the plugin named "GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic: Replies Control" find this line:

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

replace it with:

Block Disabled:      (Update License Status)
Suspended or Unlicensed Members Cannot View Code.

No one has answered this after a week.

I am having a problem with he statistics not showing and even stranger, no logs. I have searched through the threads and tried various things such as only checking ip and not username or emails.
I ran this product for 5 days with not one log entry. I disabled this last night and enabled vbstopforumspam and already have 20 log entries.
I really do like this mod it is fantastic.
I am stumped, am I missing something? What settings are others using that have log entries, if you would be so kind?

Thanks in advance.

Can I "un-delete" or "un-remove" a user?

For some reason that I have not identified yet, one of my best users had his user account wiped out. It's just gone. I found in the spam-o-matic log the following:

I guess this means that one of the mods probably went to delete something and hit "REMOVE USERS?" on the spam-o-matic screen?

Any way to get this back inside of this tool? I do a daily backup so I can pull just his user information out (I think???) and put it back in.

Ok, it looks like one of my mods made a MASSIVE error and tried to delete a post from a good user and ended up REMOVING USER though the spam-o-matic tool.

This is thousands of posts, hundreds of threads, blog posts, visitor messages, etc.

Anyway to get these back? My automatic backup tool grabbed a partial backup from about 3 hours before this happened, and a full backup about 27 hours before it happened, which is now 30 hours ago.

The reason for the detail in here is that I need to know how the posts and threads were deleted, are they just wiped out so I can add them back in with a SQL dump? Then SQL dump the user information back in as well?

Hi StonePilot,

How the posts are deleted and what happens to the uer itself, depends on how you set the options on the mod in your vBulletin's Control Panel.

I installed it recently, but set it to use the minimum security levels I could imagine, without leaving basic stuff on.

I would suggest you restore one of those two backups ASAP. Which one to use, depends on how important that user is. If it's way too important, simply restore the last complete one (done 30 hrs ago) and just make a public apologize to all your users. Things like this happens. Nothing we can do to prevent it sometimes. They will understand.

Cheers.

BTW what I don't know is what will happen to that specific user from now on. If his IP, address and username was sent to the spammers DBs, I think you will have to go to each one of those two sites and send a letter to their webmasters or something. I didn't see any "send good infor about this user to spammers lists" button anywhere in this addon.

Any ideas yet on why it doesn't work at all for me? Like I mentioned before, it is working great on a 3.8.6 version of vB, but I can't get it to work at all for a 4.1.3 version and it's driving me crazy with all the spam coming in :( No logs, nothing.

Just not working :(

Did you try removing everything (files, product and plugins) for this mod and re-installing it?

Yes, several times :(

Turned my forum off for now :( I am guessing **X***Rum*er has hit it (sorry for the **, I don't want it to get any recognition).

What a pain! I am not sure why this mod is not working on my forum :(

Anyone?

Statistics & Logs > GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic Logs ?

Settings > GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic > StopForumSpam: Desired Action > Log and block registration ?

It sounds to me like you are not able to connect to the stopforumspam.com website. You may need to ask your host for assistance on why you cannot connect.

It doesn't do anything with them that you do not specifically tell it to do with them. Check your settings. Then read the on-screen instructions/options when you choose the Spam-O-Matic option from the moderation tools menu.

The default settings should be fine and are made to work on 99% of forums.

Thanks.

Will give it a try for another couple of days and report back here. vbstopforumspam has logged and average of 15 entries everyday since I enabled it again.

Thats because that older mod logs every user who tries to register, instead of only the ones that actually get past the built-in vB registration system.

In other words, you are seeing checks of bots who would never be able to register anyways because they are unable to complete the built-in vB reg system.

This mod only checks users who are able to get past vBulletin's registration system, which reduces the strain on the stopforumspam.com system and generally optimizes the way vbsfs was intended to work.

Ahhh. got yeah! Thank you.

Well, I got no response so thought I would try something...

I completely removed vbulletin from the server, uploaded a fresh copy (4.1.3), re-uploaded the config file, and then reuploaded Spam-O-Matic. I can't tell if it is working yet, but will keep checking.

Easy... try creating a new user called "china". Trust me... it works!

aw man... doesn't work still :( I'm really bummed. What could possibly be stopping it from working. Maybe I'll load the default vb template now and see what happens. Could that matter?

Nope, that didn't help :( I registered the username china no problem after setting the default template back and removing the old template entirely :(

Seriously, what could stop this mod from working??? I can't even turn the forum on for 2 hours without having to deal with 50 posts (or more)

I even have the footer links turned on and nothing shows :(

All working with 4.1.3.... smashin .. thanks

Im a try this...i have been getting hit by spammers lately..somehow they are getting thru the human verification queestion

Can I just say?...This mod is a lifesaver!!! I've been using it for a little over a month and it's caught nearly 500 spammers trying to register! Thanks!

This is the best script for spammer , I had the old version until a few days ago and i didn't have any problem not a single spammer passed. I upgraded to version 2.0.2 and the system is still doing his job but i have some spammer that pass the system .

My problem if I can say like this is that the menu from users where you had the option to submit to stopforumpost is not there anymore, How can i submit a new user or a new ip to the database ?

please go back and look at the FAQ on the first page, or posts within the last 5 pages of this thread...your answer lies there.

I have readed that FAQ and there it say that will be inserted from version 2.5, my question was if is any other way to submit a user or ip to the database until that version appears.

We had problems with lots of Bots registering, so we changed from our Q&A to reCAPTCHA. Instead of lessening the amount of Bots registering, it instead seemed to INCREASE--our simple Q&A was keeping out bots more than Google's reCAPTCHA!

After searching around, found this Mod and installed it, with mostly default settings. (Holy crap there are a lot of options you can set with this thing!) It's perfect! Been running a few days now, and not a single Bot has registered. I've even turned off Human Verification altogether for registration, and it's still keeping out the bots from the Akismet and StopForumSpam databases.

And the Newbie Group stuff... I love the concept, even though I'm not using it, yet! I actually discussed making something similar for our forum a while back, so that we can restrict "members" that sign up just to post a link or ten. I never actually went through with programming it, though... Great that now I don't even have to!

But I might not even need that, since you've included auto-moderation of posts with X amount of links from people with under X amount of posts! Truly awesome!

This Mod definitely deserves it's Mod of the Month award. :> Thanks, GlowHost!

The past few days I have been having some a*hole spamming on my site.

After his first few times posting his URL, I added his URL to the censored list in vBulletin. So the idiot after making new accounts comes in and posts his crap but instead of posting the url instead he upload an image which is the url to his website. Or he posts a [ img ] tag.

I would love to see this mod updated to prevent attachments or using the img tag for x number of posts.

It denied someone access to the registration page because the name they picked was pokemon. Why would it stop people with such a common word as their name?...

Go to stopforumspam and search for "pokemon" the reason would be obvious. You can opt not to have usernames checked for known spammers.

A better way for this mod would be to check for "Username" AND "E-mail" AND "IP" and not "Username" OR "E-mail" OR "IP".

This was working really well for us but we've had an increasing number of members unable to register in the forums as they are marked as spammers, incorrectly. I have had to disable it which is a big shame.

You cant get a key from stopforumspam as you get this msg:

Sorry
Due to abuse by certain people, we are currently limiting API signups to members of the forum. We are sorry that we have had to take this course of action but we hope to have things back to normal shortly

Its been like this since I originally installed it.

i give it a shot i report in a few weeks on what i think

Sorry I am still a newbie but when it says to upload the files to the forum root does that mean I just upload the whole folder or do I upload each file?

Thanks.

one thing needs added is in my settings new members need to confirm there email before they can use the forums but with this program they dont (seems to bypass that part) if you can add that option so this part will work

Read the message. Just register in their forum and you can get an API.

It works for me. New users can sign up once this mod lets checks they are not spammers but they appear as "users waiting email confirmation" until they confirm it with the email they receive... like always.

Not THE folder for this plugin. Upload the folders and files WITHIN this plugin's folder. In your FTP you will see a folder named admincp amongts other folders and files. That's your forum root. On your PC, grab all the folders and files from the addon and upload them in there as if you wanted to replace them... actually they will merge ;)

I put them to Newbies group maybe this is why but they dont get any email any way to fix this

I went to register a key after signing up to the forum:

strange does not seem to send out email to new user any one know how to fix this

Hmmm... I have bad memory so I'm not 100% sure of this but I think I remember clicking on some "Get API Key here" inside the forum itself. Not going back to the page propossed by the addon itself. It must be there and it should be working... I did it last week :P

http://www.stopforumspam.com/
http://akismet.com/
get your api keys from here

my email still does not work new members still dont get the email

@BellyBelly, caracena is correct--I got mine not more than three days ago, with no problem. :P




@GlowHost, I've got a problem. There are several "users" that I've programmed to make automated posts for various parts of our forum. I've placed the userids all into the Spam-O-Matic: Protect Users (as a comma-separated list). They also each have WELL over the number of posts in the Auto-Moderation: Minimum Post Count setting. However, they STILL get auto-moderated.

Am I misunderstanding the purpose of the settings and going about this the wrong way? I'd like to find out what it is I'm doing wrong, soon; those posts that keep getting auto-moderated are auto-posted for good reason. X3

Well, there was a bug in older versions which moderated RSS posts, are you running the latest version?

Yessir, just downloaded it from here three days ago.

If it matters at all about the content of the post, here is an example of one post it moderated (which I have since unmoderated):

http://www.clubbleach.org/forums/sho...=1#post4634915

I am not really sure without knowing how you programmed the users. Assuming these users belong to the correct group, then they should be able to post, but again I don't know how you coded them to post so its hard to say for sure.

They do not belong to any special group--just registered users. They were previously able to post just fine.


I believe I've just found the "error," though, and it was nothing on your part. XD I used the wordlist that was linked in your setting for Auto-Moderation: Bad Words as an example. I did NOT read the bit on there which said that it over-rode the Post Count setting (I'd thought it was the other way around).

If that is the case, though, it ALSO over-rides the Spam-O-Matic: Protect Users setting, which I do not think was the intended behaviour, correct? Shouldn't that and the Protect Group settings take precedence over everything?

I will have to test it, but yes, you are right that protected users should have precedence over everything.

Ai'ight. It's probably just me doing something wrong, but do test it out when you get a chance just in case. :>

I don't really need the bad word list myself, and it does seem that was my issue, so I'm still cool.

so i installed this today, and i already have it saying its blocked 24 spammers. is that normal? why is my site being attacked so much?

@dcgaming, I don't know if it's "normal," but I'm experiencing similar numbers. In the 3 or 4 hours before I installed this Mod, I had ten accounts register at my forum that were all Bots. @_@

I wasn't having such a huge problem before, so I'm thinking that lately there must have been increase in spammage, or something. (I'm not a Bot master, so I don't really know, heh.)




@GlowHost, I'm almost certain that the Auto-Moderation options are ignoring the values of the Protect Users setting. (I don't know about the Protect Groups, though, I haven't tested.) After clearing the "Bad Words" list, all of my auto-posting accounts were able to post normally except for one. That one that was still getting Moderated is exceeding the URL count in it's posts.

I am not using the Newbie Group option yet, and that might solve my problem (if I set it to only moderate users in the Newbie Group--right now, since I'm not using the Newbie Group, I don't have that option set). But the userids in the Protect Users -should- over-ride everything, not to mention each of those accounts has a post count greater than Auto-Moderation: Minimum Post Count. (I know the Bad Words list was not affected by post count, but the URL Count setting -should- take into account the post count, neh?)

If you can't replicate the error, then maybe I've done something wrong, or possibly some other plugin is interfering with yours. Let me know when you're done testing, 'kay?