Dealing with profile link and registration spam

Hello, I was wondering how other XenForo forum admins are dealing with users registering only to drop a link or two in their profile before becoming completely inactive. Some of these probably aren't even real humans. I think the best way would be to make some usergroups that registered members automatically graduate from as they post and get access to features like links.

I'd be interested to hear what permissions people are using and settings, etc.

Thanks

 

I no longer use XF(I moved back to IPB last month) but yeah I think the best thing to do is prevent users from being able to post links until they reach a certain post count. It'll certainly deter them i think.

 

It's not the posting of links that's the problem but people posting but profile link spam. XF doesn't seem to have an option for restricting this.

 

What systems have you got in place in regards to Registration Captcha's and Input's to try and limit these bots signing up in the first place?

 

I don't think its bots. XenForo has a lot of built in safe guards which prevent this pretty well. I think it is mostly human registrations.

 

Set the usergroup permisson Edit profile: to No (not set).

This will remove the Personal Details and Contact Details pages/fields so they cannot add a home page (or other info).

Cheers,
Shaun

PS. The home page link is nofollow.

 

The problem with that is then they can't change their avatar or set a bio if they are a legitimate user. I guess I'm being kind of picky lol

 

Use it for the Registered usergroup (along with other anti-spam restrictions such as no signature, etc.) ... then set-up an automated promotion to move them to a less restrictive usergroup after x no. posts or some such criteria.

This way you and you moderators will have an opportunity to cleanse the spammers before they even get a chance to set-up any profile info.

 

I use about 4 different promotion groups that stack new permissions on. There is no reason to let anyone that hasn't been their awhile and has less than 30 posts to post anything on a "member" page.