Method of decreasing spam

[Neodude1123201]

Excactly right or a spammer can create an account and use a bot on that account. I Think what we need is for new accounts to be manually activated by an Admin Or a Mod.

Or more mod's.

 

[David Lindon]

Excactly right or a spammer can create an account and use a bot on that account. I Think what we need is for new accounts to be manually activated by an Admin Or a Mod.

Or more mod's.

I know that when I visit a forum and find I can't post untill my account is approved, I can normally find my answer somewhere else before the account is activated.

Also, when a user registers with a username and email, whos to know if its a spam/bot/human or whatever until they are approved and either make a genuine post or a spam post

 

[madanchi]

I know that when I visit a forum and find I can't post untill my account is approved, I can normally find my answer somewhere else before the account is activated.

Also, when a user registers with a username and email, whos to know if its a spam/bot/human or whatever until they are approved and either make a genuine post or a spam post

yeah agreed, it doesnt make a difference it it's accepted instantly or at a later time, theyr still going to spam either way - unless it puts them off by waiting?

 

[setishock]

Excactly right or a spammer can create an account and use a bot on that account. I Think what we need is for new accounts to be manually activated by an Admin Or a Mod.

Or more mod's.

"I Think what we need is for new accounts to be manually activated by an Admin Or a Mod."
Stimpy, are you nutz? Only admins and supermods can approve moderated registrations. Having to go in and get the IP then wash it through stopforumspam then based on what you find out, approve them or ban them.
Take their IP and put it in .htaccess or the IP and email and put them in the VB built in IP and email blocker.

It's a lot of time consuming work that would never end. You can't tell some one their account will be approved in 24 to 48 hours either. They'll just go somewhere else. Automated spammers controls are what keep you from being a slave to your forum. They're not anywhere close to perfect as we're dealing with flesh and blood people. They creat an account then cut the bot loose.
The price of peace is eternal vigilance.
More mods maybe. Manual registration moderation, no.

 

[JogaBonito1502]

Is there a way we can make it so after 'x' people hit the report post button it gets automatically deleted or moved to spam or w/e? This would allow all users to do it, but wouldn't make it so a user could "delete" another user's post. The only flaw I find in this is people signing up bots (or just themselves) to purposefully "delete" other people's posts.

 

[Legodude522]

Hmm, some sort of ranking system?

 

[Holysky]

How about not being able to post HTML into your first post and your first post has to be introductory in the social lounge.

 

[lhamil64]

Another idea came to me while reading the replies to this thread.
What about some kind of way (probably by a plugin if there is one available) to have the link source in parenthesis next to the word that is replacing the link. Also, links shortened by services such as tinyurl and bit.ly could be automatically unmasked.

Examples:
Click here(http://computerforums.org) to go to computerforums!
..or..
http://bit.ly/c6X53m would turn into http://computerforums.org automatically

I've never seen these done on any forums and wouldn't actually stop spam but would somewhat prevent users from clicking on dodgy links (unless they completely disregard the link in parenthesis and click the link anyway)

I still stick with what I said before as one of the best methods (one of the best that doesn't require a human anyway, if mods/admins have to approve member registrations they would be at their computer 24/7)

 

[vampist]

I like joga's idea.
I had an idea while I was in college and couldn't log in.
I thought of a work around for the whole "5 post" rule.

The problem with that rule is if we need the user to post a link to what he/she is talking about.

Well, what if users with less than 10 posts can't post links in the FIRST post of a new topic?

This makes a nice work around for the link problem. Because the spam bot usually never comes back to the same thread. Just makes the original post then makes a new topic.

If a actual new user needs help and needs to post a link, we just ask them after the initial post to post the link.

EX:
<newUser> User asks for help.
<Vampist> Could you gives a link please?
<newUser> Newegg.com/myproduct

 

[Grantofhell]

It's not like they couldn't post a link, They would be able to give us the URL still. Which if we can see they are legit, then that's not an issue.

Just copy-pasta it to your URL bar.