Seriously this site has a really bad problem with spammers. How long has this been going on.

I know some sites you have to be approved by owner of site, not just send email and see.

Should make new user send email just saying In a sentence why they want to join. Might cut down spammers =/

I delete all SPAM once a day. Today I found the first clever one that disguised itself as fish-related but when I clicked on it, it was a fish page mixed with porn-related words.

I have been unable to find an option wherein I would be able to verify the first posting of a new member. That would be ideal. I do require e-mail registration. That keeps out most SPAMers because they don't want to provide an e-mail. Once they do, I delete that member and can block the IP address too (if I have time).

I looked again. I can set administration validation. Basically though, if someone requests membership, I would just have their e-mail and have no way to know if they were legitimate or not.

Hum, I just found a section where I could see who deleted what. A few members are deleting posts, presumably their own.

Aside from me continuing to moderate as I have, there are two options. The first wouldn't really be an option. It would require me to approve every single message. Since I only get on once a day, nobody would be able to really have a conversation.

The other option is to allow moderators. I'm not entirely clear on what they would be able to do. See my other post about possibly adding moderators.

I agree with Painted. I don't like the Spam that gets posted by unsavory users but if Robyn has to approve each and every email address than that might keep some people from posting simply because they may have an urgent question that they can't post until approved. I have been there myself and didn't like waiting. On one forum it took 7 days to get permission to post.
I have always wondered if the Spam (porn spam) posts have kept some people from registering..
I am glad that Robyn is considering adding moderators. That should help a ton.
:)

I think having moderators just to delete the porn postings would be of great benift. They got me today with a cleverly disguised post as Robyn mentioned. I know that the "Village garden web forum" (which is huge) does not have moderators listed and you can post the same day you join, but none the less I have never seen any Porn posted there. I don't know how they accomplish it though, but I could try and to find out! It would be nice just to be able to view the un read post option with out looking to see if your daughter is standing behind you. :(

FM3

Banning emails does nothing, IP Addreas banning is a must, There are so many free places to make email accounts its not funny, hmm also sure there is a way to change IP addreas,

The chances of some random porn addicts posting here everyday is slim to none, its probably 2 or 3 people

It's all done with "bot" and "crawlers"...meaning it is all automated. Free email accounts can be generated by the thousands with the click of a key. One way of authenticating that someone is actually on the other end is to implement one of those "type the following letters and numbers in the space" type barriers. They aren't 100%, but do help to a degree.

If you can log the IP, you can reverse spam them until they stop. Meaning bounce every spam they send out back at their server, over and over, 24/7, until their server crashes. This sometimes can be effective, but may just escalate the spamming too.

I hate spammers. :angry:

Derrick

I don't like spammers either but I think somebody ;) does a D*** good job watching out for it. Especially with the busy life she's got going on. I belong to another site that the owner reads every email before posting, I'm glad it's just emails. No one bothers with the message board or chat. Another site has the owner and one moderator with final autority being with the owner. When things get 'really out of hand' (the moderator can't control), she steps in. Another site, everbody abandoned because the owner didn't screen any new people...and we got spam overload.

I think she does ban the IP's but those spammers have nothing better to do with their time and figure a way around it. They just hijack some poor innocent persons computer and use their IP. Just think if they put all that effort into something good like lets say, algae control for ponds! Just think of the wonderful benefits that would come from it! Now I would spend money on that.. :)

If you set Admin validation for new members you will find a lot of email addresses will bounce so they won't get in as now with email validation but if you look at the profiles of prospective new members with valid address that you need to approve you will find that in the majority of cases you can pick the spammers quite easily - like people claiming to be doctors and lawyer who can't even spell doctor or lawyer. Lots of the profiles will be identical except for the name and a slight variation in the email addresses. That is because the majority of them are sent by bots.

You can also get ad-ons from the phpBB site that can filter out most email sent by bots.

I had this problem big time on a forum so I turned on Admin validation so I could check the profiles and that cut down on the spam massively. I just go and delete any unapproved member where the email obviously comes form a bot. They can't post in the mean time. You will probably miss a few at first but after a while you get to recognise them really easily.



This works for me because you can see a member profile before you approve a member (at least you can on the version I use). You just go and look for them in the members list when you get the application email and have a look at their profile and if it looks sus you delete it and then their email.

I haven't had the chance to install the ad-ons yet.