[spam] how to deal

[walton]

I've "pruned" about two dozen names today.

I agree, most of these are probably people.

[walton]

And I got rid of two dozen inactive members whose IP addresses were the same, had names similar to quite a few of the previous obvious spammers, etc.

As for what they do this for . . . who knows!?

[R. C.]

Oh the irony of the post above spamming this thread.

[a-h-k]

We had a number of new registrants in the last week who posted a greeting message with no personal information about themselves. One of them even addressed the Web site itself as a person. Not one has engaged in discussion. Were any of them real people?

[Seisa]

Not likely. A couple I banned. If the ones I didn't ban post anything overtly spammy, they'll be gone too.

[Arn.Natz]

Can't you just make new accounts wait 24 hours after creating an account before being able to post in the forums? I think that would deter a majority of spammers

[Michelle]

What about two-step validation, where after initial registration the user has to confirm via email that it's a valid account? That, along with the captcha, should help reduce the problem. Also their first post should be automatically moderated. There is a function in Wordpress that allows this for blog comments -- I'm sure phpBB would have this feature built in as well.

[a-h-k]

I really would like to see them post in the introductions thread. Make it mandatory. Let them discuss what they're working on. A low-tech solution like that would weed out the spambots.

[walton]

We have a multi-step registration process. There is a captcha and a confirmation email, which has to be answered, is sent to the email account.

So far, that's the best I can find. There are plug-ins for phpBB, but I haven't found anything more secure.

[Seisa]

Ahh, the irony of a spam post on a thread about how to deal with spam. I just deleted a post on this thread about essay writing services (and banned the poster - I'd warned him a couple days ago for the same type of post on another thread).