PLEASE READ: NO, you have NOT been banned! **REDACTED**

[_TrashcanMan79]

I'm in Turkey right now. Thanks.

[_Bond James Bond]

Miss Taken? UK I think? (Although she's been gone a while.)

[_Ceeboo]

I'm in Turkey right now. Thanks.

Are you stuffing?

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_Infymus]

Shades, I too fought a serious war against spammers on the EMF. I was deleting 40 to 50 spammers a day.

I then upgraded to 3.0.9 of PHPBB and with it comes new registration settings that allow you to post question and answers to thwart spammers.

With 3.0.9 you set up any number of questions you want to ask and what the answers are (either case sensitive or not). 3.0.9 then asks one of the random questions you set up.

Like one of my questions is "What is the LAST name of the person who founded Mormonism?" and the answer, non case sensitive is "smith".

I have had -0-, ZERO spammers register on my forums since I upgraded, and that was on Oct 26, 2011. Imagine that, not a single one.

I would seriously consider upgrading to the latest version.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Ban them all.

For America.

[_ldsfaqs]

Why don't you implement "basic" spam filtering features instead?

Implement Image Verification, Email Verification, and Rotating Question Verification?

Use these three things and you will stop all spam.

In case you don't know what the last is, it's where you create 10 questions or something, and then on the Registration form it uses one of those questions, that you must answer correctly for the form to post. For example, you can ask a math question, or some other known question.

Spam bots can sometimes get past Image Verification, but they almost never can get through Email Verification, and the rare ones that are able to do that, they certainly can't get past Rotating Question Verification. The last two require manual action.

You will almost never have any spam problems then.
I'm sure there is a PHPBB plugin or instructions out there for each of the three above.

[_Quasimodo]

Ban them all.

Let God sort them out? :)

[_Infymus]

Spam bots can sometimes get past Image Verification, but they almost never can get through Email Verification, and the rare ones that are able to do that, they certainly can't get past Rotating Question Verification. The last two require manual action.

You will almost never have any spam problems then.
I'm sure there is a PHPBB plugin or instructions out there for each of the three above.

The plugin is crap, I've tried it with phpBB. Just upgrade to 3.0.9 and it comes built in.

[_Yoda]

Can't you just set it up so that you have to manually approve each membership? How much hassle would that be?

[_Shulem]

Ban everyone who drinks alcohol! Goddmanit!

LOL!!!!!!!!!

Paul O