Spam and how to prevent it.

[Frank Ryan Jr]

I have a problem.
I set up a messageboard for my club
(www.shannonsideastronomy.com)
an even though I set the permissions for requesting to Admin approval
I still get all these false signups....
Its very annoying!

I do remember however that this site was one of the only sites I can remember
asking for an email from the person that wanted to sign up....
Great!

(so how do you do it!?) 

[drclay]

Interesting that you should ask, as I just finish rejecting about another dozen or so from Russia.

I receive about 120 requests daily for memberships to these forums and the number is increasing every day.  I actually have to read each and every request, send a form letter which requires them to respond in writing and then I make an educated guess.

There are many 'automatic' applications from "mail.ru.....directsell.com.....mail.intel...." etc. etc., and there are many that are obviously pornographic in nature; none of the obvious ones or those with trick or gobbledy-gook names even get the courtesy of my letter; they are rejected immediately.

But the fools keep trying.

Best of luck on yours....it is a tough road.

Dr. Clay

[snufus]

Frank,

The hidden gem in preventing spam registrations is putting in place an image confirmation code mechanism which I see you have now on your registration page.  That should eliminate all spammer signups as they are coming from programmed bots seeking out easy registration targets to spread their filth.  Once you have that image confirmation code mechanism in place say goodbye to all false signups which I am sure you are not getting anymore of. 

Most important of all always make sure you have your permissions (registered users only can post) setup correcty when creating a new topic\forum as these programmed bots will find them and start posting their filth in a matter of hours.  It is amazing how many errors I have logged from these bots trying to make posts as guests.  The numbers are quite astounding on a daily basis so much so I stopped logging them to conserve SQL Server DB size.