I'm posting this here to remove the duff one that WAS top of this list!!

Andrew

Its quite hard to put a stop to them as they're performed by automated scripts.

One way to reduce their number would be to disable anonymous posting altogether (unsure if noz has already done so), another is to turn on new account verification, whereby the board administrator has to manually approve the creation of all new accounts before they become live.

Obviously that has the advantage of meaning virtually no rogue accounts can be created, but the downside of it is that a genuine new user is waiting an indefinate period of time before they can get posting. It would also be a burden on Noz, obviously.

Sadly theres no magic solution, a real pity, as the spammers know and exploit this fact.

indeed.

You can usually guess the content by the title. If no one looks as them then these contemptible worms have wasted their time.

Derek

I am part of the admin team on another forum and spend up tp three hours a week deleting dodgy members!

It is very frustrating and never ending.

I have just returned from 2 weeks in Spain and there are four pages of them on the memberlist to go through.

We have alsorts of hurdles in place but they still get through. Its just a matter of being more dogged and persistent than they are!

The strange thing is they come in waves, up till I went away it had been quiet for a few weeks then just as I went the next lot came through!

We have similar probs on the Aussie Cit Forum (URL in my sig). Fortunately most of the time it is drug or insurance peddlars not porno posters. We are about to implement a tool that has been proven to reduce the number of robot posts. I think today I deleted at least 8 newbies and other mods probably did some too. We also ban user names, email addys and sometimes even IPs.

I think we see waves because some little toerag comes up with a new "hack", lets all their friends know and away they go again, whilst programmers work to stop that hack. Just like virii. If these people could be held responsible for the frustration and most importantly the financial impact they have it would slow them down. But reality...

Hi all,

Sorry, I'm at a loss to stop this. I've switched on all of the protection that the forum software offers. We have the screwed up letters and numbers that have to be input to conclude the membership application. Bot's aren't supposed to be able to read these distorted figures. IF they do then I don't know how. Otherwise it is actual individuals doing this. I also ban the IP of every membership I delete. Before banning someone I always search for their e-mail address in google. You can tell the spammers because you get hundreds of hits suggesting a BOT is responsible.

I've also switched on the function whereby only members can post. However, as you can see they become members first then post.

All I can do is delete them as fast as I can but they join faster than I can delete them.

I only have one switch left. I can organise it so that every new membership needs the webmasters approval before becoming members. The trouble is I'm not the webmaster and I can't contact him. I have tried several times. He must still be around because when the forum crashed a few months ago he wrote a message saying it was in the process of being fixed and then he did fix it. I have written to him several times to offer to pay for upgraded forum software but never had a reply.

What is strange though is that they only seem to target the "General Anything Goes Chat" section. I can find no difference between this section and any others. I might try renaming that section in case the BOT script contains that exact phrase.

Ce la vie !!!

noz

Hi Noz

It might be wise to leave them with the "Anything goes" as a target otherwise we will get them trying in every section.
Is there any way that another one of us can share the clean up load.

Regards

XMexc

Actually you may have hit on something there noz. We have two sections on our forum with "General" in the title and those sections take 80-90% of the hits. Maybe a rename of some sections might help.

Craig,

How did you get on with your "anti porn" tool?

Did you get it installed and do you think it will do any good?