[xXCMGXx]

Wtf is with all the spambots? isnt there something to block this kinda s*** from posting on the site?

[Focus man. Focus.]

Get used to it man, it happenes all the time.

[xXCMGXx]

booo. the other forums i visit dont seem to have this problem.

[darkpuppet]

no.. we've tried several different methods for getting rid of the bots... unfortunately, you can only avoid them for so long before they come back.

I just add their IPs to our ban list... and we'll be good for a couple weeks until a new batch of bots come in.

Not sure how we got posted on spam bot lists, but we get automated ones and human-bot-farm ones as well, so there's no easy way to avoid them.

[OAC_Sparky]

Not sure what registration hoops you need to jump through here (as I've been a member a long time) but one of the things we have on my forum is a registration "question" ie. What is the third letter in the word "Focus"? -- something that a bot wouldn't automatically know to fill in the field to without an actual person to read. Wrong answer and it kicks out the registration.

Another thing you can do is there's a anti-spam list at http://www.stopforumspam.com/ where you can check the registration IP and email address automatically against a list of known and reported spammers.

Personally our forum doesn't do it automatically but I manually do it to all new registrants every couple of days.

[darkpuppet]

yeah, we have the confirmation e-mail and graphical pin, but I've switched to various other registration confirmation libraries over the years.

I now just try to get in at least once a week and clean up the bots and add 'em to our banlists... hell, I've even changed the forum database and numbers to trick bots -- or at least limit them to a non-BB Code forum (hence this Welcome forum)... and to that extent, it's been pretty successful in preventing bots from posting links and images and coralling them for easy cleanup.

[paolo]

good stuff dark puppet