Php Bb
 

Anyone here any good with PHP bulletin boards?

I am running one for a large group of people (but no where near PP) and we are getting big enough that I need to make some mods.

One of them entails modifing some of the code on the BBS and I could use some "hand holding" whilst doing this just so I do not cock it up.

If anyone has any experience with this system would appreciate a heads up.

Joe

What are you trying to do?

Need to install a modification that changes the BBS from normal to one that requires you to input a number or other thing that a spammer robot cannot do when registering. Right now the spam robots just interrogate the BBS and sign up as a member. They are not active but deleting each one takes up to a minute each and I have far too many other things to do on the board.

Its complicated enough that I would rather get someone who is really good with PHP to assist rather than just jumping in and mucking it up myself. Too many people now depend on the board so it has to work.

I am getting around 20 spammers registering every day now. It was not a big deal when we started this 3 years ago but with 700 users and over 10,000 posts now its becoming more of a hassle. Need to stop the spammers from registering so I have more time to worry with the bulletin board.

Version 3.0 already does that I think but you could require email verification for new accounts... right? That might slow them down. Good luck!

Exactly, double opt in.

+1 Use the email verification. That way, you (or the Administrator) has to personally approve (by clicking a link) each new member.

Alternatively, you could upgrade to PhpBB3, but I'd make sure to do it on a non-live test server first. The new permission system is a bit odd and takes some getting used to. Other than that, though, version 3 is pretty nice.

Only problem is that even if you don't approve the new member, you still end up with all those usernames in the memberlist.

They never get to post, but you still have to go back and delete all the usernames

We have a PHP bbs for our extended family to keep in touch & plan events. Every couple weeks I have to go in and delete ~100 "c##tf##K69" and "pornoman" usernames

I am running 2.0.21 and the newest available at this time (not Beta) is -22.

My host (www.westhost.com) does not have ANY of the "3" series of PHP available on their server. I know that the PHP BB is free for the download but I have been using what is offered by my host as its a quick and easy process to do.

Jake,

Are you using the PHP Toolkit? Its a free download off of PHP.com

Makes deleting names A LOT easier. You can do 25 at one time so better than doing one at a time. Its still a hassle but doable.

Note that I've never admined a bb... but...

you should be able to write a cron job script that will delete any un-verified account that is more than N hours/days/weeks/etc old

PHP programming is really simple, esp. if you have any programming experience. If you can't do this, I'd recommend seeing if there is a plugin, etc. (or upgrade as mentioned above) that will do what you want. If you want to get really exotic you'll need to delve more into SQL as well.. although that is fairly transferrable between platforms for basic use (mysql, mssql, postgres, etc)