How to block certain types of user registrations

Support
1

Hello,

I’m moderating a community running on Discourse, and I’m kind of new to the platform, so forgive me if there’s already a topic about this.

Is it possible to block certain types of users on my forum?

We’re being inundated by Indian bots that keep trying to register. So far, the built-in filter blocks their registration, but some inevitably fall through the cracks, and then proceed to create multiple topics with nonsensical gibberish, “hotline numbers,” or even entire posts in Hindi, in another alphabet.

What are my options regarding this? Do I create a filter to block certain words (but they don’t always use the same words) or the Hindi alphabet? How do I do it so I automatically block these spam bots? I don’t want to block the entire country of India if I could help it though, as there’s some legit traffic from them.

Thanks!

2

I would just use the AI spam detector (in the AI plugin). You can ask it to be more aggressive towards non-English posts, and posts containing hotline numbers, etc.

3

I have not tried this, but I feel it might be a bit of a hassle to install, configure, subscribe to a paid external service, manage the account to suggest to “just use” this plugin :thinking:

I’d try to tweak Discourse spam settings and thresholds first : https://meta.discourse.org/t/tips-for-preventing-spam/264020#p-1285092-spam-related-site-settings-5

Then, also install the Akismet plugin. You can obtain a free key very easily by just registering an account: https://meta.discourse.org/t/tips-for-preventing-spam/264020#p-1285092-akismet-anti-spam-plugin-3

My forum has a lot of spam (most from India as well), but the vast majority is caught either by Akismet, or by the Min first post typing time setting.

4

OpenRouter is free, and Gemini keys are free to a certain limit, IIRC.

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