Fight against spammers

[Jessica]

I've noticed an increase in members lately, and most that never post and are actually spammers - because the usernames are somewhat similar and also, last week some of these members got banned for obvious reasons -- and there are members that have similar usernames that are still joining

Anyways, I've got some ideas to fight against them, so there won't be so many fake users.

For those actually post, I don't know if this is already installed or whatever, but you should disallow links before x posts. that means that if you have under a certain amount of posts, you cannot post links.

Set up more questions or Captchas that the person who is registering have to answer or something of the sort.

I know that most of the spammers that are joining don't really post, but even then they get banned anyways and I'm hoping that there will be less spammers registering and all.

From what I know there is already an anti-spam software installed and most don't get past that defense. but being obsessed with forums and all, I've been keeping a close eye on the number of members joining, and recently there has been a huge increase.

Just wanted to say that this is just a suggestion. The members that are spammers aren't bothering us so there's no need for this blah blah but I still get irritated that so many join and a lot have similar usernames.

[Rusty]

Thanks, Jessica, for the suggestions and your concern.

We are, of course, very much aware of the significant increase in the number of registered members that aren't here to learn anything. All of them are currently sanctioned.

We keep a constant vigil on the traffic coming to our site. You should know that there are already safeguards in place that keep hundreds of unwanted users from ever registering in the first place, every day. Those that do make it through the registration process are subject to further scrutiny. Members who don't follow rules are sanctioned very quickly, and are eventually banned.