spam stopping idea

[Tom Bottiglieri]

Originally Posted by KTorak

I think you misinterpreted what I meant. I meant that you would have to have a set number of 'good posts.' IE technical posts (so no chit-chat stuff). After so many 'good posts' you could start a thread about something. At a Jeep Enthusiast website that I frequent, they have a system where so many technical ('good posts') allows you do certain things, like start a thread, use the search feature (it bogs down the website), and to link pictures inside of you posts and what not.

Wouldn't that defeat the whole point of these boards?

Originally Posted by Pavan

Actually I think that we need to emphasize more on the "Search" button rather than to do anything like this....

This is about spam and advertising, not repeat questions.

[Mike]

I always found CAPTCHAs kind of annoying, so when Team 237's forums were hit by spambots I found a better idea.

Rather than image verification, make the user answer a simple question. "What is two plus two?", "Pick what doesn't fit: Cow, Goat, Lamb, Blender" etc.

If the spammers were really dedicated, they'd search through all the questions and figure out the answers themselves, then feed them to the bots. However with a big enough question bank, they will probably just go to a more vulnerable board.

[Brandon Martus]

There is a hack like this for vBulletin -- I may install it to try and slow down some of this spam.

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by Brandon Martus

There is a hack like this for vBulletin -- I may install it to try and slow down some of this spam.

I actually had this idea of just blocking certain screenames of spammers. If one bot is found spamming then more than likly a google search will multiple other hits on other message boards. It's not something that I would expect you to do but Im just throwing it out there.