Michael, isn't there anything that can be done to stop this? How about someone isn't allowed to post for the first three months after they get a login. Sort of like probation. Or alternatively, a person can post text right away but can't post a link for the first three months. Or better yet, a person can't post a link for the first three months AND until they've posted some minimum number of text-only messages (spammers won't want to go thru all this, but legit members will be understanding, I think). This shouldn't be too hard to automate.

Craigslist.org has a very cool system for getting rid of spamholes very quickly. Every post has a "flag" button under it. If you see a spam post, simply click the flag button. When a post gets flagged a certain number of times, it is deleted and the poster's account is locked automatically, without even requiring a moterator. New accounts don't need as many flags to trigger the lockdown. It works quite well, most spam posts and posters have a lifespan of about 15 minutes.

Working on it.

Michael

You can't auto filter all of them out, it's not possible.

There are two kinds of spam - bots and people. Bots are easier to filter - turn on image verification, require email confirmation - that does most of them.

People are harder and the bottom line is you have to have someone constantly monitoring or moderating new registrations and updating the ban list. I auto filter over 100/day and manually filter/ban about 50/week on my forums.

We have just changed from email registration to manual. A sysop will now have to filter each new registration request.

More work for us, and slower registrations for everyone new, but I agree, it's almost impossible to eliminate the spammers completely.

Michael

Thanks for taking these steps, even if it means more work for you.

Perhaps you can get some assistance from experienced forum posters (no, I'm not volunteering ) if the workload becomes too much of a bother.