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I have a couple of general points to make:

(1) As we have written many, many times in this forum ,


If you have issues with site registration then these issues are not likely to be created by Kunena.

(2) If you want help quickly then you should read the FAQs page and the advice that is posted on the category header that is printed at the top of this page. If you do not want to tell us anything about your website, what version of Joomla you are using, what version of Kunena you are using, what kind of menu arrangements you have in place, other extensions you've installed and how you have configured them to work with Kunena, that's OK. All of this information is in your configuration report . We are not going to ask you for your configuration report - we should not have to ask you for it - but we probably can't help you without it either. That is why your question has not been answered.

(3) You posted your question nearly 5 days ago. I replied within an hour of you asking your question. It took you 4 days to get back here again. If you want help then you must also be prepared to be involved with the process.

Kunena is not responsible for user registration.

*** Topics merged ***

A question for you, editas. This topic has been viewed many thousands of times. Are you regularly polling this page expecting some action? Can you explain why this topic, created about an hour ago, has been viewed so many times?

It's my guess that this is a Joomla issue.

I don't know anything about K2 (or whether K2 has any involvement in the Joomla account registration process), however the key point that people should bear in mind is that Kunena is not responsible for the user registration process. Further information on that point is given in msg #2 of How do I register new users to my website and where should they login to use my website? and in msg #3 of Question about Registration .

It also looks to me that you have an outdated reference in your Joomla topmenu menu and it may be useful to "reset" your menu back to the default settings. The topic Kunena Menu issues will help you with that.

I hope this helps.

G'day, rhunter, and welcome to the forum.

If you read this topic (and elsewhere on the forum), some people have laid claim that the reason their websites have become clogged with spam or spambot behaviour is entirely due to the presence of Kunena.

It was not that long ago that I wrote in this topic:

We are sympathetic to the issue of any web-based discussion forum being attacked by [various badly-behaved web agents] and Kunena is not more nor any less susceptible to such attacks [than any other web-based discussion forum].

This topic contains many ideas that people have used (with varying degrees of success) to counter such attacks by spam merchants. I am sure that you will find suggestions and possible solutions to your problem by browsing the pages in this topic.

In the first instance it is a must that you should attempt to prevent the source of spam by employing tighter controls around the user registration procedure. As mentioned many times in this forum, Kunena is not responsible for user registration. I hope that some of the information you will find in this topic will assist you.

If you know which account is being used to spuriously send emails from your server, then it is a relatively straightforward matter to ban the account. If you have other evidence to substantiate the claim that [any version of] Kunena is somehow culpable in being used to act as a relay point for spam email generation, we would be grateful to know of such evidence.

Do you have any other information about what kind of web agents are responsible for this behaviour that you're reporting?

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G'day, mac123, and welcome to the forum.

We are sympathetic to the issue of any web-based discussion forum being attacked by Xrumer (and other badly-behaving web agents) and Kunena is not more nor any less susceptible to such attacks.

This topic contains many ideas that people have used (with varying degrees of success) to counter such attacks by spam merchants. I am sure that you will find suggestions and possible solutions to your problem by browsing the pages in this topic.

In the first instance it is a must that you should attempt to prevent the source of spam by employing tighter controls around the user registration procedure. As mentioned many times in this forum , Kunena is not responsible for user registration. I hope that some of the information you will find in this topic will assist you.

To remove "create an account" change your Joomla settings to prevent new user registrations.

*** Topics merged ***

@krebsinfo: As you probably know , Kunena is not responsible for user registration or login to your website. This topic may help you with ideas for how to protect your site from spam registrations.

G'day, flavia.silveira, and welcome to Kunena.

As you may know (if you read msg #2 in this topic) Kunena is not responsible for registering new accounts at your Joomla website. If some registration behaviour has changed it is not Kunena that is responsible for it.

flavia.silvera wrote:

Nobody seems to be able to register because the recaptcha is not working ...

From another message you posted here - only a few hours ago - ( Banned users still able to post ) you now say that people are able to register new accounts at your website.

We have to assume that because new accounts are being created at your site - even if a lot of those new accounts belong to spam merchants - that the problem about "nobody seems to be able to register" has now been fixed by you.

G'day, horus68, and welcome to Kunena.

horus68 wrote: There is an error when trying to login in your forum:
1- Login => email and password doesn't match

You cannot login to this site using an email address. To login to this site you must use a valid username and a valid password. If you do not enter a valid combination of text on the login form, you will get the following message:



There is nothing in this error message that says "email and password doesn't match". So I don't really understand what you are referring to.

horus68 wrote: 2- Reset password => link "Forgot your password?" => Doesn't work

The " Forgot your password? " link works perfectly well to send an email to you with the details of your password. The " Forgot your password? " link is not a way for you to reset your password to something. The link is completely automatic and there is no message sent from you to the site administrators asking us to reset your password to something.

For the " Forgot your password? " facility to work properly, you need to enter a valid username. If you enter a username that does not exist on this site, you will get the message "Failed to save user: Please enter a valid username"

horus68 wrote: 3- Username reminder => Link "Forgot your username?" Works ok, mail received!

That's good to hear.

horus68 wrote: 4- So... no email to contact ...

What has this got to do with the problem?

horus68 wrote: ... Facebook not updated for some months...

What has this got to do with the problem?

horus68 wrote: ... and I had to create a new profile just to post this message!
(note: old username "horus_68" and email are already registered on forum!)

I would like to make two observations here:

1. You had no difficulty created the account horus68 at this website. You had no difficulty logging in to this website with the username horus68. Good! We are pleased that you are here. Thank you for joining this website and posting your first message on this forum.
2. The account name "horus_68" was registered on 4-Apr-2010; the last time this account was used was the same day. "horus_68" has never posted a message on this forum in the 3 years since the account was created! In fact, "horus_68" has not logged into this site in the last 3 years!

I spent the past 30 minutes looking into this situation for you and it seems like effort spent over a minor issue.

horus68 wrote: Please fix it!!

I do not see anything that needs to be fixed. I think it's important to remind everyone that it is Joomla, not Kunena, that is responsible for user account management, account registration and login.

Thank you for your observations but I think this matter can really be considered to be resolved. You can login and post messages using the account horus68 and we are happy for you to continue to use that account.

Good!

If you want to restrict male members to only be able to use the male category (and the same for female members) then the issue becomes a little more complicated. The total solution is in five parts.

(1) The first part is to define categories for "male" topics and for "female" topics. This part is done with Kunena. You have done this part.

(2) The second part is to find a way to ask the question, when users register at your site, if they are male or female. This part is not done with Kunena. This part is done with Joomla. Do you have a way of asking, when users register new accounts at your site, if they are male or female? Please understand that Kunena is not responsible for user registration. See this topic to help you: How do I register new users to my website and where should they login to use my website?

(3) The third part is to define, using Joomla ACL, user groups for "male" and "female".

(4)The fourth part is to use the information in (2) above, and to automatically assign the access permissions in (3) above, based on the answer that people gave. Again, this is something that is not controlled by Kunena. There may be a Joomla extension that you can use to say "If the person is male then give them 'male' access permissions; if the person is female then give them 'female' access permissions". I do not know of a Joomla extension that does this automatically, but it should be possible to do. This function does not exist in Kunena.

(5) The last part is to assign "male" access permissions to the Kunena "male" category that you defined in (1) and do a similar thing for the "female" category. This part is done with Kunena.

If there is no automatic way of using information obtained at registration time - and I don't think there is - then you can assign the permissions in (3) to each account, one by one.

Does this information help you?

korri78 wrote: Is there any possible way for users to choose their avatar in [another] way?

No.

I think I understand your situation. You want some automation, at registration time, to categorise your members into the "generalists" and the "specialists" and then feed these different classes of users with different forum content.

As far as setting up the forum categories is concerned, the information I offered you before takes care of the how things work by relying upon Joomla's inbuilt ACL security mechanisms. If, on the other hand, you want to rely on some pass-phrase technique then it probably comes as a disappointment to you to reply that I know of no such method that works in Kunena.

The approach is to have people register and then, somehow, categorise the membership. If I understand in correctly, you want this categorisation to be done seamlessly and automatically. The result of this categorisation is to apply different ACL rules for these "specialist" accounts.

The good news is that there are products that do this (although I, personally, have no first-hand experience how to use them). The alternative method is to perform the user categorisation manually, as we do here at www.kunena.org. We, too, have categories on this forum that exist but that are not accessible to the general public or to "limited access" logged-in accounts. Therefore the solution is not only possible but it is proven. The question that you need to wrestle with is whether a reliable, secure, automated means can be found to categorise your site membership or whether you're comfortable doing this sorting "by hand".

naimless wrote: Please try this as an experiment on your forum (or here, on k.org). Open up a board to guests (with Captcha check enabled). It will look as though Captcha checks are working fine when using the front-end from a browser, but within a few days or so I'd predict you'll get swamped and swamped by hundreds spammy messages that somehow seem to completely ignore the captcha (or have found a really cheap way of cracking or bruteforcing re-captcha).

Allowing non-registered users (I.e. guests) to post at K.org is something we would never do; on a more personal note, it's not something I would allow on any forum that I have built. Allowing the posting of material on a forum, without requiring the need to be logged-in first, is an almost open invitation to those who post spam on the millions of websites around the world to say "Post your spam here".

CAPTCHA is not spam-proof. Indeed, there is a whole industry built around evading and overcoming CAPTCHA defences. I'm not saying that CAPTCHA is ineffective. I am, however, saying that Kunena is not the only web-based discussion forum product using CAPTCHA that is less immune to spam attacks than any other web-based discussion forum product. The reason that this discussion seems to be making a lot of noise about Kunena, in particular, is because Kunena is the most popular forum discussion extension for Joomla. It's because there are hundreds of thousands if websites around the world that use Kunena that there are potentially thousands of opportunities for spammers to ply their trade. The spread of spam is made easier if people do to take appropriate measures to combat it.

Allowing people to post on your website, without first requiring them to register at your website, is the first step in allowing the posting of spam on your forum. I understand that there are many people who want "guests" to post on their forums but, in allowing this, they also should be aware of the associated risks.

I am not bored with this subject. I gain useful knowledge from reading what people have to say and suggest. But I would also ask people to remember that this topic is not "Dear Sozzled, what do you have to say about spam". As with everything else on this forum, this topic is for everyone to pitch in and discuss the issues.

Let me make two points very clear. Firstly, there are many automated methods to combat spam; I have yet to find any one method that is 100% spam-proof. Secondly, spam happens and that's just something we have to accept as a fact; spam does not completely evaporate despite the best anti-spam measures you've put in place.

There are ways to reduce how much spam your forum can receive.

CAPTCHA is good. Protecting your site by implementing more rigorous registration is better. Requiring that only logged-in accounts can post in your forum is better again. But the most effective defence against spam is vigilance.

*** Topics merged ***

How people's websites become the target of spam is outside the purview of the Kunena product but there are many strategies that people can employ to reduce the incidence or, at the very least, make it more difficult for spam merchants to attack your website. The best strategy is to make it more difficult for people to register at your site. J! 2.5 includes built-in feature that can assist you. For instance, you can require that people need to enter a CAPTCHA code when they register or tick a box "I agree to the terms" before their registration becomes active (like we do here at K.org)

Another strategy is to use a plugin like Spambotcheck (look it up on the JED for more information, which is also something we do here.

You can also require that the first n posts must use CAPTCHA - this is something you can set in the Kunena configuration settings. You can also require that new users must use a category where all messages must be reviewed before they appear in the forum - but this means that you have to be prepared to look at those messages and approve them.

A lot of people expect that there should be lots of "automated", hands-off tools that will do these kinds of things for them but, as I have written many times in this topic, "the most effective defence against spam is vigilance." We're fairly vigilant here at K.org and that's why you will not see much spam on this website.

I hope that helps.