BuddyPress.org

If the devs can’t reproduce an issue, it’s pretty hard to fix, right?

“It seems like the Splog problem is not being taken seriously enough “

Sure it is – but a bunch of the devs have open test sites and aren’t getting hammered by splogs because they made a few simple changes, which they DID post about.

There’s tons of solutions posted all over. I’ve found you have to use a lot of them, the main one being change the default signup. Did you do that? Is your register slug custom? Have you added a couple of extra required fields on the signups page?

Working

WP single, WPMU 2.9.1 & BP 1.2

wp-ban

invisible defender

wp-spamfree

bp-links

bp-group-documents

On BP 1.2

Group Forum Subscripton for BuddyPress

SyntaxHighlighter Plus

Quanrantine (awaiting for soon? update)

bp-events

bp-groupblog

Sorry, but we don’t want a list of spammers’ domains listed here. Whilst you have a good idea, posting a list of domains is likely to be helping the spammers get better results in search engines, etc.

This is without a doubt one of the best plugins I have ever seen.

I have a couple of questions I have been playing with adding a (tweet this) to the link at the bottom where it says:

‘0 Comments (avatar image) admin created 5 seconds ago – (then here I would like to add a button for sharing)’

Cant find the right section to allow this do you have any ideas?

Another question as well is it possible to make the link section your home page, i.e. the first thing I want people to see is the link listing page, any ideas on how to do this?

Some suggestions (you can tell me to take a running jump on these!)

Is it possible to add a question in the link submission page (to prevent the inevitable spammers) like ‘whats 98 + 17 (enter in box) once they have given an answer the link is posted based on correct answer or wrong one throws up link could not be posted.

The other idea is a bookmarklet code so people can post on there blogs etc, or some kind of iFramed box to show how many votes they have received on their blog once the it has been submitted.

I know I may be reaching here but I just think this is a fantastice piece of code.

Cheers dude, look forward to hearing from you.

@Bbrian017, you have to add that line to wp-config.php yourself + a few other things. It’s explained here.

It’s a bit of a hack, so I think it would be good if it became part of the basic setup, maybe at installation (wpmu).

@jfigura I agree. That would be maddening in addition to confusing! The point we’re trying to make is that BP lets you set your password. That’s it. No email. Just login after you activate. When WMU sets the password, you have to wait and hope it wasn’t caught in spam and all the other associated issues. If you are receiving the email then something isn’t working correctly for you.

My own opinion is this way is much better (what are the chances you immediately forget the password you chose?) I hate it when I get generated passwords as I then have to go in and change them all over again.

Changing the register slug so far looks very effective in my installations. Could that be built into the core somehow?

@bbrian017

Read this article:

http://www.bp-tricks.com/tips_and_tricks/stopping-the-sploggers/

@cyndy: I totally agree with you, Capthca’s are ony good for creating jobs in Asian countries and a useless hurdle to users. I second (third?) stwc and Andrea though: once changing the defaults, splogger change from several times daily to once a month….

Don’t forget to delete or rename (or empty if you want to avoid loads of entries in your error log) the wp-signup.php file, as that is what most sploggers come in on. Though I am pretty sure that now BP works on WP, some new methods need to be found soon on both sides of the fence

My install of BP 1.2 final on my WPMU doesn’t seem to work with the v1.6 Welcome Pack plugin. It activates fine, preferences save, but when new users join, they’re not welcomed with anything. Any ideas why it installs fine but doesn’t seem to work at welcoming new users? Thanks.

pjnu – Works for me. What type of WordPress MU install do you have (example.com/blogs or blogs.example.com). Anythign in your error log? Emails not being caught as spam?

Two of the suggestions above, changing the register slug and changing known text in the footer, are things I outline in my article Bowe links above (http://www.bp-tricks.com/tips_and_tricks/stopping-the-sploggers/).

Clearly, I can’t read. >_<

I actually already have Invisible Defender running — and I don’t know if it’s really done anything, but certainly it’s better than nothing. And my form is slightly tweaked; don’t know why I never thought to change the slug, though.

Anyway, thanks David!

@Cyndy: The two posts above you give alternatives to using captcha. It’s not the “only known solution”. SPAMers use bots. Bots look for known text and urls… like “Powered by BuddyPress” or http://www.mysite.com/register or whatever. Changing those things can help a lot. And invisible defender helps too. All without captcha. Which I think everyone will agree… sucks.

With all of the web standards and accessibility built into WP and BP, it really makes me sad that a captcha plugin is the only known solution to this.

Captchas are probably my biggest pet peeve on a site. Even the ones that aren’t horribly mangled pictures or have sound alienate those with vision and/or hearing loss. The BP site I run gets its share of spam registration — and like Andy I just mark them as spam as quick as I can. But a captcha isn’t going to help me in any way since 80% of my member base (including myself) are blind or visually handicapped.

http://www.arrowchat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32&p=295#p295

Spam them

Change the register slug and add more required options on the BP signup page. The sploggers look for the defaults, so change ’em.

Another good option is to change your registration page slug.