Feature: Require answer to question on new user registration

Question

Lately, my q2a site got swamped with registrations from spammers. The suckers must be really getting desperate in their attempts to ruin the fun in other peoples live… Captcha was of no use at all. I had no other option but to suspend new user registration.

Recently I learned from administering a forum, that the most effective way to block such nuisance is requiring new users to answer a silly question, one that is easy for people interested in the subject.

Having looked at a plugin's source code, one that adds ToS to the registration process, I think that such a thing belongs into core itself.

Anybody up to propose a patch? Has this already be done in a github fork of q2a?

Comments

If you are willing to pay a bit, you can use the stop spam plugin: http://www.q2apro.com/plugins/stop-spam

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That's it, and even more. The pricing is a little steep though.

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I found this one: it does exactly what I want, no more no less: http://www.question2answer.org/qa/33481/new-plugin-very-simple-bot-protection-vsbp

Answer 1

I found this one: it does exactly what I want, no more no less: qa/33481/new-plugin-very-simple-bot-protection-vsbp

Setup and configuration, adding questions, is easy. Will now wait and see if that works to prevent spamers registrations. May tell the results, when ready.

Comments

Because guard feature of my site is very strong, I can not confirm spam protection performance with my plugin definitely. I am waiting for your real use report.

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Two weeks passed, I did not get any fake registration requests. There were only few GETs and POSTs to the register module though, mostly bots that advertise as such; Probably the spammers are not aware yet, that registration now is open again.

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Thank you for a report

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Two months now passed: Very Simple Bot Protection worked to prevent far more than a hundred automated fake registrations, indeed none did succeed. From the looks of the access times in the web server log, interested people do not have problems; no complaints via "feedback" form either.

Answer 2

I have had decent success with reCaptcha instead of the standard Captcha. There's also KeyCaptcha available. You should also check to see if the spammers are coming from the same few IP addresses and block those altogether. I haven't used it, but there's Spammer Checker listed on the Q2A Add-Ons page under "Integration with other products". 

I don't know that this would need to be a core product addition rather than just a plugin.

Comments

I am aware of these and I do not like any of them. If you have ever seen the success of a stupid little (insider) question that has to be answered correctly (match one of a hidden list of strings), you would think so too!

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The reason I don't believe this needs to be a core addition rather than a plugin is because your situation isn't necessarily one faced by everyone, but rather a portion of Q2A users. Maybe I'm wrong and a lot of people will up vote your request and it will get added to the feature request list for a future version. I know exactly what kind of setup you're talking about, but have also seen it defeated. There are spammers that aren't actually bots. There are people out there who are paid to visit and register for as many forums and sites as possible to boost their own SEO (granted significantly less than bots). reCaptcha and KeyCaptcha work well for many people and thought it worth mentioning them for anyone else who views this question.