SQL to delete SPAM accounts (please review)

[omacneil]

We are running 2.2.4.0 of OJS

We have a bunch of SPAM accounts, all are from Afghanistan, None of our legitimate accounts are from Afghanistan.

Will the SQL below delete them without unhappy side effects ?

This thread is encouraging but not official:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5610

DELETE FROM user_settings
WHERE user_id IN (
SELECT user_id
FROM users
WHERE country = 'AF'
);

DELETE FROM users
WHERE country = 'AF';

It is my plan to enable captcha tonight.

[asmecher]

Hi omacneil,

That should be fine -- if there are other entities that are associated with these accounts, like submissions, then you may run into the odd problem, but I've never encountered spam registrations that did anything more than just create accounts like those you're observing.

Regards,
Alec Smecher
Public Knowledge Project Team

[omacneil]

Thank you

I'm working on a variation of the query that contains the word 'Viagra'

[omacneil]

SELECT count(*) from users WHERE country ='AF' AND user_id NOT IN (SELECT USER_id FROM `article_event_log`)

and:

SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE country ='AF'

both give me '543' so I think it is all ok.