I'm sure the moderators are doing everything they can to remove the spam, but when it's this much, I think the problem lies with the software and registration process. I think it's a good idea to stop people from posting for three days after registration - if it works, the effect should be seen immediately, and if it doesn't, it's easy to change back. Until a better solution is found, it could even be necessary to verify new members manually before they're allowed to post.
the deluge continues to worsen, so it's probably worth a try... but if it's going to work at all, then a 24-hour wait would be just as effective and not as annoying to would-be new members as a 3-day one would...
Personally, I did like another idea presented. An application process beforehand. Those who are new members must answer a questionnaire style application before being accepted. The only question I have about any policy regarding new members, would it automatically void my account? Truth be I only what registered just last week. If we added in these new member regulations, would they effect the people who have been posting normally as a fully fledged functioning member?
There appears to be a recent surge of spam and I predict this will only get worse. Currently half the latest posts are spam. The time for half measures is over. This war must end soon or this site might perish in the flood.
Well that's a little overboard... Spam is an annoyance at best. When you see it, report it and move on. Hardly a "war", and certainly not site-threatening. I'm sure forum admins are doing everything they can to solve the problem. So relax and don't be going all commando on some spam bots...
THIS IS SPART-- uh, WRITING FORUMS!!! I still think we could use more trustworthy people manually deleting obvious spam threads and banning their authors in the mean time, if it's not all that complicated. At least until software deterrents sufficient to stem this plague of spam are in place. IMO.
Granted, there's a lot of spam. All the more to ignore. It's not exactly difficult to work out what is, and isn't, spam. If you see spam, report it and move along, it doesn't take more than a few seconds. Nothing to get so worked up over. So relax, you'll live longer.
i'm with mrd on this... it's easy enough to ignore till daniel figures out the best way to deal with it... getting all het up about it won't help you, him, us, or the site!
I agree. Of course, it is extremely annoying, having the spam everywhere, but usually you can tell the difference between spam and genuine. I haven't found it life-threatening
The robospammers would hardly be slowed down by a silence period. For every account that spams immediately, they open ten more sleeper accounts to spam days, weeks, or months later. And they DO come back to those sleeper accounts. Any solution must stop them from successfully registering dozens or hundreds of accounts in the first place.
Sadly enough the only way to stop that is an IP Registry, which requires license which require legal mumbo-jumbo, which is in all truth being told, More annoying then the spam itself. IP Register records IP not just e-mail, so I can't create an account from the same computer when one account is made. Figure to explain for the non-geekies. I still find it said I remember this from middle school some 18 years ago
This is a potential problem on all internet forums. The worst offenders are the Asian SEOs. Measure have been taken on my own site, which would probably be useful to you. First there is a restriction on new members using signatures and visitor messages until they have been seen to be active on the forums. Second is a quick check of new members. Where there are multiple registrations for one IP the accounts are deleted (except AOL accounts). Any IP that shows with an unresolved hostname, and most of the Asian SEOs usually do, is also deleted. We also have the Akismet spam manager turned on. The staff deal with any spam posts which do manage to appear on the boards as soon as they are aware of them but those other measures mean that there is very little of that. I also had a cleanup of the site recently and removed all accounts more than a year old which had no posts. This reduced the number of members by two thirds and no doubt a great number of those were spam accounts.
I've tweaked the anti-spam plugin we use and changed the type of image verification required upon registration. Hopefully this will slow spam substantially. Once we upgrade the forum software I expect spam to be reduced to near zero (manual spammers being the exception). If everyone would continue to report spam posts I would appreciate it.
will do! thanks, as always, for your diligence and hard work in keeping this site going and making it the best on the net, daniel! and i'm soooo glad you made it out of your teens alive and kicking-ass [now that i can write that out!]... ;-) love and hugs, maia
