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How to disable Profile Text on User Profile?

In over 6 years not a single user has added profile information to their profile on our askbot instance, however this is a favourite with spammers when creating fake profiles. They like to fill them with advertisements, urls and offensive content. Is there a way to disable, or temporarily limit, the creation of the free-form Profile section on profiles, even if just for newbies (e.g. via a Karma Threshold)?

After reaching the threshold (e.g. 5 points), a message inviting the user to fill in or expand their Profile section might be sent.

Rupreck's avatar
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Rupreck
asked 2015-09-20 17:00:57 -0500
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1 Answer

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Starting version 0.7.54 profile info is shown to the public only for the approved users, so spammers will no longer take advantage of those fields.

However - if you would like to disable the field - create a custom template user_profile/user_info.html

Evgeny's avatar
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Evgeny
answered 2015-09-22 22:36:17 -0500
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Thanks. When is that due?

Rupreck's avatar Rupreck (2015-09-25 04:12:47 -0500) edit

As a temporary measure we first disabled the submit button on the user_edit page but still new spammy user profiles appeared. Disabling the update profile form submit stopped the profile spam confirming that part at least is bot/script driven.

Rupreck's avatar Rupreck (2015-09-25 17:31:25 -0500) edit

Recaptcha on the account registration page might also help.

Evgeny's avatar Evgeny (2015-09-26 11:38:44 -0500) edit

That has always been enabled. Either Recaptcha has been cracked or a human first creates the accounts then scripts the rest. Unfortunately, although disabling the profile update page has stopped spam in the profile, it has not slowed the rate of spam postings into the moderation queue. Block spammers button has stopped working strangely so we have to run the askbot_clear_moderation_queue script to clear everything. What is really needed is 1) free alternatives akismet 2) email notification of items on the moderation queue. It is vital we accept or remove messages fast to maximise user experience, minimise spam impact 3) replacement for recaptcha which is easily cracked. 4) Recaptcha or other on the Create Posting page. Review in reverse the users on this site and note that most of the last 250 users here are spam too.

Rupreck's avatar Rupreck (2015-09-26 15:35:19 -0500) edit
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