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How to Block an Entire Country [message #168563]

Fri, 24 May 2013 03:20

Elliaison

Messages: 18
Registered: February 2011

Karma: 0

Junior Member

On my FUD forum, I get a number of spammers all of which come from China or Russia. There are no legitimate users from these countries that would be accessing my Forum. I delete all users from these countries manually which is about 3-8 a day. And I manually delete their garbage posts as they come in.

I am aware of the IP filter that lets you block IP addresses or even ranges of addresses, but inputting the many addresses owned by these two countries is not an exciting proposition. Now the update I have already checks the IP address to see what country that are coming from and puts a cute little flag of their country next to their account and each post. So I know the look up is already being done. Is there a way to utilize the auto look up that is already being done to block the users of an entire country?

Could this feature be added to a future release and configured from the admin control panel?

I searched this forum and the internet multiple time for anything dealing with Blocking an Entire country but have not found anything useful. If this topic is already discussed somewhere, if you could please send me the link, i would appreciate it.

Thank you so much!

BTW - Thank you for the time and effort you have put into this product. I am so very pleased!

Elliaison

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Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #168596 is a reply to message #168563]

Wed, 29 May 2013 15:39

dagnygren

Messages: 5
Registered: March 2003

Karma: 0

Junior Member

I would also very much appreciate a feature like that. Also having problems with Chinese users requesting registration and then abusing the forum. Would also like an option to automatically set new user's posts up for moderation until they have a certain amount of approved posts.

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Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #168598 is a reply to message #168596]

Wed, 29 May 2013 21:02

Elliaison

Messages: 18
Registered: February 2011

Karma: 0

Junior Member

Quote:

Would also like an option to automatically set new user's posts up for moderation until they have a certain amount of approved posts.

If I understand what you want correctly, This feature already exists... Login as an Administrator, go to: Administration, Global Settings Manager and then down under the section called "Message Settings" you will find:

Moderate user's first N messages:
Queue user's first N posts for approval. If a user's post count exceeds this number his/her posts will be automatically approved (unless posted to a moderated forum). Set to 0 to disable.

Set that how many posts you require to be moderated prior to letting them posting without moderation. I have mine set to 1 and am able to catch all of my China spammers because they post garbage every time and it never gets to the forum. But it takes up so much time denying posts and deleting users that it would be so much nicer to have a way to deny a whole country so they couldn't even create an account to be deleted or posts to be denied. It is just wasting so much of my time and my moderator's time...

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Re : Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #168599 is a reply to message #168598]

Thu, 30 May 2013 09:34

TheDude
Messages: 120
Registered: November 2012
Location: France

Karma: 2

Senior Member

In my experience, I have not had any spammer from China or other country posting on my forum. I'm probably lucky.
But what I also do is use the botscout plugin, plus 2 additional questions, one using the riddlecaptcha plugin. Very efficient
I also have a growing .htaccess file and I add many bots manually.

http://www.bartopmania.com

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Re: Re : Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #168602 is a reply to message #168599]

Thu, 30 May 2013 23:51

GaryM
Messages: 118
Registered: May 2013
Location: Seattle

Karma: 3

Senior Member

Our forum has been on-line for only 2 weeks and we've had 2 spammers from China. Probably just luck as well. I've got a .htaccess file in my directory, guess I should start using it. Thanks for the plugin tips. I be sure to look into them.

No users from China but would be interested in blocking the whole country like the original poster indicated.

http://vintagegruen.org

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Re: Re : Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #168611 is a reply to message #168602]

Sun, 02 June 2013 08:16

naudefj

Messages: 3771
Registered: December 2004

Karma: 28

Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer

It should be relatively easy to do:

Step 1: Go to the Geolocation Configuration ACP and load an IP database.

Step 2: Write a PRE_REGISTER plugin (similar to botscout.plugin) to query fud30_geoip and deny access from whtever country you don't want to see.

Now we just need someone to code it for us.

Best regards.
Frank

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Re: Re : Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #186032 is a reply to message #168611]

Tue, 03 June 2014 16:56

Elliaison

Messages: 18
Registered: February 2011

Karma: 0

Junior Member

Has anyone attempted to work on this? The learning curve it would take for me to do such a thing is extensive. But I need a solution to this. I currently have 375 junk posts from China that I have to moderate. I have been adding hundereds of IP addresses and address ranges to the block list, but it is not enough.

Any help please?

Thanks so much for your time!

Elliaison

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Re: Re : Re: How to Block an Entire Country [message #186033 is a reply to message #186032]

Tue, 03 June 2014 18:38

TheDude

Messages: 120
Registered: November 2012
Location: France

Karma: 2

Senior Member

Have you enabled the stopforumspam and botscout plugins ? I can tell you that they are VERY efficient. I used to have an .htaccess file and copy lots of IP addresses on it but the 2 plugins above are really simple to use and they work really well.

http://www.bartopmania.com

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