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Greg · 06-15-2008, 08:13 PM

It's a combination of things:

As Rose said, I check for spammers every time I log on to the site, at least once a day and often every few hours. If it's there, I deal with immediately and terminate both the spam and the user with extreme prejudice.
I require email address verification. That cuts out a huge number of spambots that aren't sophisticated enough to receive and respond to email.
I can't be bullied into relaxing the security by trolls claiming that Hotmail or Gmail blocks the confirmation email from the board.
I use one of those "enter the secret code from the image" things. That defeats a lot of spambots.
I added an extra question to the signup procedure that cuts out most spambots. You have to agree or disagree with a question.
I block all known spammer domains--hundreds of them, maybe even thousands--so that the web server simply does not respond to queries from those IP addresses.
I block all known domain name and IP address maskers.
I require manual activation of every registration and check every new one to assure that the registrant is connecting to the board from a legitimate ISP. (I do allow Hotmail and Gmail, for now, but the IP address you connect from must be a legitimate, identifiable ISP with responsible spam policies or I won't activate the account.)
I periodically check who is repeatedly hitting the boards without registering. This has added a few more spambot domain IP addresses to the blocked list.
My anti-troll policy is to delete and ban without comment,which only takes a few seconds. That means a troll who is attempting to manually spam the board has to do at least 100 times as much work as I do, and the only reward the troll gets is having spam messages appear for just a few minutes.

I'm not sure lazy is the right word for BBS admins who dont do these things. I suspect that many don't know how and the rest don't realize that it only takes a few minutes of your time to set it up and then a few seconds to deal with anything that gets through.

So instead of lazy, the worst we might say is ignorant or misinformed. Inattentive ought to be on the list, too.

06-15-2008, 08:13 PM	#4
Greg Da Guy Wut Owns Dis Joint Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Texas Posts: 3,566	It's a combination of things: As Rose said, I check for spammers every time I log on to the site, at least once a day and often every few hours. If it's there, I deal with immediately and terminate both the spam and the user with extreme prejudice. I require email address verification. That cuts out a huge number of spambots that aren't sophisticated enough to receive and respond to email. I can't be bullied into relaxing the security by trolls claiming that Hotmail or Gmail blocks the confirmation email from the board. I use one of those "enter the secret code from the image" things. That defeats a lot of spambots. I added an extra question to the signup procedure that cuts out most spambots. You have to agree or disagree with a question. I block all known spammer domains--hundreds of them, maybe even thousands--so that the web server simply does not respond to queries from those IP addresses. I block all known domain name and IP address maskers. I require manual activation of every registration and check every new one to assure that the registrant is connecting to the board from a legitimate ISP. (I do allow Hotmail and Gmail, for now, but the IP address you connect from must be a legitimate, identifiable ISP with responsible spam policies or I won't activate the account.) I periodically check who is repeatedly hitting the boards without registering. This has added a few more spambot domain IP addresses to the blocked list. My anti-troll policy is to delete and ban without comment,which only takes a few seconds. That means a troll who is attempting to manually spam the board has to do at least 100 times as much work as I do, and the only reward the troll gets is having spam messages appear for just a few minutes. I'm not sure lazy is the right word for BBS admins who dont do these things. I suspect that many don't know how and the rest don't realize that it only takes a few minutes of your time to set it up and then a few seconds to deal with anything that gets through. So instead of lazy, the worst we might say is ignorant or misinformed. Inattentive ought to be on the list, too. __________________ Who are all these people and what do they know?