Spam is still a big problem. We really need a more pro-active approach to stomping out the bots.

Seeing that I spend a good amount of time at work browsing iTT, I'd be happy to help delete the spam posts and ban spammers

OK, the spam overload just got me thinking again.

What about throttling new users to 1 thread every 24 hours for the first 5 days?* This wouldn't stop them dead, but I can deal with 1 spam topic from some jerkoff better than I can deal with a dozen.

*Maybe less, actually, as the ability to start topics is not an important part of forum participation—I have exactly 5 topics to my name

The immediately obvious downside is, of course, the spambots adding their spam to existing topics if they cannot create their own.

The ideal solution is to limit the spambots' ability to obtain membership here (and, as a consequence, the ability to start new (or add to existing) topics in the first place.

I own a 9 years old forum with over 600,000 posts. The problem with spambots was gone immediately after requiring a specific word (written in the previous page) in the registration form.

Yes, I lost some real users that found this process annoying, but the non-human spam is now only a bad memory. I prefer things this way.

<dave barry>"Non-human Spam" would be a good name for a band.</dave barry>

Spam Now, with less Soylent Green!!

I had this problem on a forum I administered and the IP addresses were totally different, they seemed to use computers all over the world (hijacked computers maybe?). Banning an IP address or range didn't really help much, the spam soon returned.

The only thing that stopped the spam was requiring each new member to be manually approved. It was obvious which members were spammers because the registration e-mail domain almost always ended in .cn or .info

However, that might not work that well on here because there are so many new members every day, far more than on the site I worked on.

Spam's not TOO much of a problem here yet imho, it's more a minor irritation.

Reggie: Can we implement nospam! like one of the previous users suggested. The questions don't have to be changed too often and could be stored in a form filler so I'm sure posters won't be put off from the additional input required.

If it's bypassed I guess you could add Captcha verification too.

yabbas, there is a similar spam check question that comes up during registration. Since they can bypass that, I guess there are actual hired contractors to just do the registration. I guess they then sell the registered member ids that a software takes in and post automatically to the forum.

The best thing to do now is still hitting the 'report post' link. I get notified immediately and I have means to delete all posts made theat user and ban his ID and IP with one click.

There are other things happening that you all might be aware of. Recently, a lot of new registrations have popped up with usernames and a long signature promoting xanax, viagra, cialis, etc. I have manually deleted these members. I also have made changes to the forum settings to block keywords on usernames as well as not allow signatures unless the member has at least 5 posts.

It's a lot of work but thanks to those who have been helping, reporting spam posts immediately when they see it.