Bad bots: Q2A-Spammer-Checker

Question

We have had a hard time to deal with bad bots. In one of the attempts to fight this issue, I have tried the plugin Q2A-Spammer-Checker which is at https://github.com/sparticus1701/Q2A-Spammer-Checker. However, it seems that it is not working.

Does anybody have some information about this plugin?

I  followed the instructions available in the readme.txt file and I got a key from the botscout, but it is still not working.

1) Should I do something else?

2) Anyway, does anyone have another solution for this problem?

I really appreciate any help.

Comments

"Seems that it is not working" is not a problem description. What makes you believe it's not working? How does "not working" manifest? Are you seeing errors? If so, what do they say? Is the plugin enabled in the Administration center under Plugins. Also, 1.7 is pretty old. The current version is 1.8.6. You should consider upgrading.
For other anti-spam plugins see the documentation (https://docs.question2answer.org/addons/plugins/#anti-spam-tools ) or my own plugin Registration Blocker (https://github.com/ansgarwiechers/q2a-registration-blocker ).

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"Seems that it is not working"  => Bots seem to be registering at the same rate. I will take a look at yours Registration blocker. Do you think it works in version 1.7? Yes, I intend to update q2a but I made so many changes in the past that I am afraid of that :-(

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What's the result of running this query in your database?

select COUNT(*) from `qa_eventlog`
where `event` = "spamcheck_1";

Also, do you have the event logger enabled and logging to the database?

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You are right. I got COUNT(*)    
64

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It's not thoroughly tested, but Registration Blocker should work with version 1.7.x too. However, note that the plugin doesn't magically rid you of spammers. It just provides a means to block (or allow) particular e-mail domains, e-mail addresses or usernames from registration. Filling those in with what you observe on your site will take some time. The plugin also doesn't help with spammers who try to register accounts with e-mail addresses that don't work in the first place (something I get a lot of right now). You may want to take a look at https://www.question2answer.org/qa/95827/#a95828 for a suggestion on automated cleanup of those.

As for being afraid of updating: that's why manual changes to core code are discouraged. If you need to extend functionality it's strongly recommended to do that with a plugin.

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Yes. Plugins are the correct solution.

Answer 1

I've been using something similar for a while but I didn't want to publish it until it is somewhat tested. I've polished a bit before submitting it to Github. Here it is: https://www.question2answer.org/qa/98717

You can check each of the implemented service providers' performance using their stats in the admin section. In one of my sites, it's blocked 90% of the SPAM user registrations.