Can someone turn the spam filter up a notch please!

[GrimJack]

The challenge with the approval method is detecting legitimate users... if there were a formula that worked, I could write code to do it automatically.  Currently I'm pretty sure we get more legitimate sign ups than we do spam, and we seem to whack the moles fast enough that they aren't profiting from the relationship.

I'm always open to ideas, though, and I'm willing to spread around the admin duties if there are able people willing.  Mind you, there isn't much work to do on the back end, I've only been wiping 3-4 accounts a month.

[beeeerock]

At a rate of only 3 or 4 a month, it isn't really what I'd describe as a 'problem'...! 

Deletions seem to happen faster than I'd ever expect, so the admin duties are being shouldered admirably!

Worst case, a spammy post stays up for a few days.  The end of the world?  Probably not!  And given the average age of the membership, maybe a few smoking deals on blue pills would be appreciated...? 

[craiga]

On a site I was admin on instead of deleting their accounts I banned them, after deleting their spam post, which meant that in order to register again they had to use a different email address & also a different IP address.
Makes it longer winded for the spammers & reduced the spam to zero.

[w2zero]

one car forum I admin is phpBB and I really like the oc ban feature.  One click dumps 'em along with their ip

[craiga]

You can do the same on smf, ban by email & IP address

[GrimJack]

Ya, problem is they aren't signing up with the same email or ip. I've used ip ranges in the past, but as I mentioned, that tends to collect some innocents in the net.

[beeeerock]

Having admin'd a PHPBB site for many years and then a bbPress forum, I've found that you're quite right in that banning individual emails and IP ranges is a bit like bailing the Costa Concordia with a soup ladle.

I've settled on making it as difficult for them to sign up in the first place... that is, by forcing them to actually think to get the right skill-testing answers.  And making it odd enough that the sign up bots don't see the usual form they associate with the forum platform.  I tailor the questions to the subject of the forum - in this case, a bicycle question or two would be good.  Heck, even asking what the purpose of this forum is might be a good question - most of the time the spammers don't even know what the forum is discussing!

Some software can be tweaked to include hidden fields on the sign up page.  Not visible to viewers of the web page, but visible to the 'bot looking through the code.  An answer to the invisible question is an automatic fail.

However, as I noted before, I think this site is completely under control!