What's with all the spam?

[ddonnahoe]

Alex, I have been noticing a lot of spam and non-sensical posts lately. What gives? Is there a way we (as a group) can block these?

[shelbym]

I think we have all noticed it, I wonder if it is bots, and if maybe the little images with the numbers / letters when you sign up for an account would help stop them. (Sorry I don't remember what they are called off the top of my head.)

Shelby

[Alex]

Well, yes, there is an increased activity of spammers targeting forums like this. I'm deleting many inappropriate messages daily, however they still manage to get through...

I will try to see if upgrading to a newer version of vBulletin could help with this.

P.S. We are using the "images with numbers" for registrations, but these bots apparently have ways around that...

Originally Posted by ddonnahoe

Alex, I have been noticing a lot of spam and non-sensical posts lately. What gives? Is there a way we (as a group) can block these?

By deleting the unknown messages from your mail some what you can stop the spamming.

[Harry]

I seem to remember another forum where there's a "report this as spam" button.

I guess it works on the basis that if a message gets such a report from more than a certain number of users the message gets pulled without needing to be checked by the site owner.

By the looks of it, most forums would benefit from this facility.

I think that presentationmall is a bot, and the only purpose of it's post was to advertise it's shoes.