Bots have been attacking our forum and our mod team has grow tired from deleting their posts. This started sometime last month, then stopped for a short while and started again now. Is this a discourse issue or what? [image] Also the previous admin retired and the current one isn’t very active, so keep in mind that we’re somewhat new to discourse and the backend side of it, and would appreciate any help with this. And we have filtered common words the spammers use, but we’ve realized that they make a post with random characters, then edit the post into their advertisement to avoid the filters.

If you’re not using Akismet, that will likely catch at least most of it. It’ll require your admin to configure it, though. [image] Discourse Akismet Plugin discourse2 Summary Discourse Akismet allows you to fight spam with Akismet, an algorithm used by millions of sites to combat spam automatically. hammer_and_wrench Repository Link https://github.com/discourse/discourse-akismet open_book Install Guide How to install plugins in Discourse Features What does it do? Akismet helps keep your site free of spam by automatically scanning all posts from new users. Scanned posts that Akismet flags as spam are immediately removed f… [image] Pricing Compare Akismet plans for personal sites, businesses, and large networks. Stop comment and form spam on WordPress or any platform, starting today.

If you haven’t already, you may also want to take a look at Tips for Preventing Spam

Looks like there are some consistencies with how the spam is worded, which can help — consider adding “helpline” to watched words (also covered in the spam guide) Watched Words Reference Guide

Thanks everyone for the help, I’ll look into Akismet and the other methods that have been mentioned. [image] Kris: consider adding “helpline” to watched words We’ve done that but sadly these bots found a nice workaround— they make a post with random text to avoid the watched words, then after making the post and it gets approved they edit it into their spam… not to compliment the spammers but that’s kinda smart :smiling_face_with_tear: Thanks for the help though! Yeah, I’ll be giving that spam guide a nice read, and I’m sure we’ll beat these bots!

[image] Hamzah Alani: We’ve done that but sadly these bots found a nice workaround— they make a post with random text to avoid the watched words, then after making the post and it gets approved they edit it into their spam… not to compliment the spammers but that’s kinda smart I think that while “require approval” does not, the “flag” option also works for edits. Have you tried that?

It will work if you disable new users from editing. edit post allowed groups You can disable tl0 from this setting

Bots spamming forum

Product Support

Moin December 5, 2024, 7:47pm 6

I think that while “require approval” does not, the “flag” option also works for edits. Have you tried that?

Topic		Replies	Views
Spam Posts Product Support	2	625	April 10, 2024
Watched words to block recent spam attack Sysadmins watched-words , spam	12	634	September 10, 2025
Blocking recent wave of spam Product Support	20	1136	July 29, 2025
Stop Forum Spam - Spam Countermeasures Feature completed	21	13621	June 22, 2019
Our forum is getting "bamwar" spam Product Support	34	11930	April 1, 2016

Bots spamming forum

Related topics