Spam in the forum

[snowlord]

It seems that the spam only appears in the General forum. Is that because it is named "General", a common name, or because it is first?

If it comes from the name, maybe it could be changed to something else, e.g. "General AR" or something like that, PeterT?

[Toa the Boa]

I guess this thread should have some tips on how to get rid of the spam: http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=427852

[kingofthespill]

I sent Peter a message about this.

[PeterT]

It's because it's the first forum. I'm investigating spam countermeasures, but it's not trivial. Thanks a lot to kingofthespill for his housekeeping work!!

As a short-term measure I've appointed some additional mods for the general forum.

[PeterT]

Okay, instead of bothering prospective users with a more complex captcha I set up a sly little tweak that should deter 99% of all bot registrations if it works as intended. Human spammers will still get through of course, but that's what the additional mods are for

[dudiobugtron]

As a short-term measure I've appointed some additional mods for the general forum.

I see I have been made one of these - I GOT THA POWA!

Evil Spammers beware!

[PeterT]

As I really believe that the new measures will work and that we will have very few, if any, spam signups in the future I also went through the database with a special toolkit and removed all "suspicious" inactive accounts. That means the forum now has 56 less members, hopefully none of them actually were human

We're rollin' squeaky-clean again!

Whew. I hate spammers.

[PeterT]

Another 39 accounts killed. That ought to be enough for now.

[PeterT]

Added another spambot registration safeguard. The first one wasn't as effictive as I'd hoped... *sigh*