SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam by Mike Challis has worked well for me.
@modemlooper, thanks for your suggestion on different forms for different users in the register.php.
I also want to change the register slug. Because spam bots know bp register slug. We can get rid of a lot of them by simply change the register slug. But, how?
Well, I must agree with some guys here, that it really should register users out of the box.
Solution confirmed:
Mail From plugin allows to send the email to the user.
The next small issue is that gmail catches that email as spam…
You can go into the database and change user_status from 2 to 0.
On here or on your BuddyPress site? The only way I’ve been able to fix this is to go into database and remove the member. Then have them resign up.
This looks like just a WordPress site without any BuddyPress in it?
Or is this just spam?
Solved. I’m an idiot.
user_spam_remover Plugin was improperly configured.
As a side note: If you use buddypress for commenting, the User Spam Remover plugin won’t pick up on buddypress activity as being actual site activity – thus causing users to be mistaken as spam bots.
I have groups set up, but I had some people ask for their own “blog” though, which I’m a bit reluctant to do because of spam / server space issues. I thought if it was just a glorified activity stream thing it might be easier to keep under control.
Gravity forms sound interesting… have to look that up, although I don’t think it is what they are asking for… they want their own “home” on the site so to speak.
Same issue, new users going to spam status. How do I “un-spam” a user?
Probably mark as spammer, or request it over at Requests and Feedback
Mark him as a bozo, on the backend of bbPress, or a spammer on the ack end of WordPress. Oughta do it…
Would using some javascript to fill the value of a hidden field name signup_blog_path do the trick?
Or should I just remove the bp_core_signup function and replace it with my own?
Im also trying to fight spam and a recent change to my signup form has increased the number of spam signups. Is there a good solution for helping ensure a human is signing up to buddypress? Im also trying to evaluate whether the vulnerability is from buddypress or my theme. How could I tell?
To give you the entire picture of what happens when you register, or do anything else, go to Buddypress Test Drive. http://testbp.org.
Register, and you an experience everything it says and does for your site.
On the email subject, Buddypress email are actually wired around WordPress emails. In the very most likely case, the email is at a snails pace, and either ends up at the spam folder, or just takes along time to receive. This pace on which the emails get received will fluctuate, depending on the activity on the site. My emails on my site take a couple minutes to receive, Only because I am on my on server, there is nothing you can really do to speed up the emails, because you are on a host server, multiple servers. Emails taking 20-30 minutes is actually pretty good, compared to most, like on bluehost, which can take up to an hour and a half! 
@hnla I know that there will be a segment of the population who will be prevented from joining because I am blocking IP addresses. But, I want/need these prevented in the first place and I do not understand why this is not addressed in the core and has to be something I must “hunt through the forum threads to reducing spam signups”. Its not like this is an unknown issue.
Besides, I HAVE searched for “reduce spambots” “reduce fake sign ups” “Reduce and reducing spam sign ups” with zero results.
You should take care adding bans on IP’s it’s a little frowned on and can affect legitimate users, Most spammers will be spoofing their addresses they don’t want to be tracked so adding these IPs is likely not really doing much.
There are plenty of tips and tricks if you hunt through the forum threads to reducing spam signups.
What I have to ask is “Why?” and “How?” are these spambots accessing and creating users? I have one site that uses WP multisite with BP and there’s a great plugin “BP Registration Options” that works well enough to grab and display all new member requests and displays IP addresses; which I then add to WP-Ban. Its taken a month but I am now down to a dozen or so spambot signups per day.
Now, I have another WP/BP site that is NOT multisite and “BP Registration Options” does not work the same. BUT I copy the IP addresses from the one and paste it into the “WP Ban” of this site. However, I am still 100+ spambot signups per day. So, I have a plugin “Pending Activations” (which doesn’t work in multisite) but this plugin does not display the IP address of the offending spambot signups. Thus, my battle with the signups continues …
So … How are the spambots signing up? Why does the registration form not have CAPTCHA? and how can we stop them from signing up?
Don’t doubt there isn’t one common string to latch onto you’ll probably have to run a few sorts, going to be agony whatever method one takes really, you could try .info that may take care of quite a few?
Thanks hnla
I did look at phpMyAdmin but there’s nothing in common like that (they’re not all .info addresses) – except the string of numbers on the end of the usernames. but as they’re on the end I can’t sort like that…?!
Sounds like time to get stuck into phpMyAdmin and use it’s search to try and locate just emails ending in .info or similar spammy email addies and delete the rows directly in the DB, might be some genuine ones but probably less than in WP backend which has no sort capability
Hey guys!
I’ve got about 20k users, you thinks that maybe the emails will be tagged as spam?
Is there a delay in sending out emails?
Thanks a lot!
“how to disallow bots to follow signup link?”
Put a nofollow, noindex on it, right in the theme where it is linked. And change the default text that is linked. If you look at your access logs and your visitor stats, you’ll see they basically google for you.
@imjscn try hunting for a plugin called KB robots text it allows you to edit the WP robots text from the dashboard and might be handy to have available.
