Spamming issues

[HostFrog]

Ok here is the deal. We had a fairly nice sized forum back when we owned hostfrog.com, since the domain was taken away, and we have done a few changed in the site design, and layout of the forum we have had a slighly bigger problem with spammers. Don't get me wrong, we did have problems before, but seems like now more then ever we are getting people that either spam their community or spam their website. Ofcourse we ban these violators asap, however, my question is how can we prevent this a little more from occuring as much. I understand that alot of us are in the web business in some way shape or form, and we will never get rid of spam completely, but there has to be a way to reduce these types of sign ups? To be honest, its kind of a pain to keep deleting the posts :( any suggestions.

[B33R]

Is it actual people signing up to spam or is it just spam bots?

A simple image verification or email address verification will stop the spam bots but there's little you can do to stop people signing up and spamming.

[SoftWareRevue]

... A simple image verification or email address verification will stop the spam bots but there's little you can do to stop people signing up and spamming.Right. What B33R said. :)

If it's real people, it's a little more difficult to control. And I would think that, on a hosting forum, you'd have to just clean it up as it happens, because I'm sure that being able to state one's domain comes up quite a bit. :)

[B33R]

I presume this is the host-frog.com forum we're talking about...?

You should turn the image verification option on in vBulletin. It won't stop humans from spamming but it's unlikely to be humans doing the spamming in your case (judging by the ease of registration on your forum)

[HostFrog]

Thank you guys for your comments. I have implemented some of our employees to moderate our forums and take immediate action against spammers. So I hope we can help reduce the current level of "bad apples" Also thanks for the point out on the image verification, I thought we had this enabled currently but I guess I was wrong :( Thanks guys for your replys!!

[spechackers]

well just leave them as it is,

1. get their IP address and send an trojan to them. i do by this way for spammers, who try to spam.

[Scott]

1. get their IP address and send an trojan to them. i do by this way for spammers, who try to spam.
Humm, I'm not sure this is the thing to do, it just causes more trouble. :S

[B33R]

1. get their IP address and send an trojan to them. i do by this way for spammers, who try to spam.Wow. I know spammers are bad but sending them a trojan is a bit over the top. Not to mention unethical.

I hope for your sake Mr Spammer doesn't go and get his friends Mr DDOS and Mr H. Ackyourserver.
I rather hope Mr Spammer does actually. Sending people trojans makes you no better than the spammers (much worse IMHO)

I really hope you're joking.

[cyberturk]

i am using SMF and and in most of the areas, members who hasn't got 5 or more messages can't send new threads they only reply topics. most of the automatic spmammer bots couldn't reply, only open new threads. For real guys i think you need more forum staff.