Pantsing and Stripping Forums

Steps that could be implemented.

Close new registration for 1-2 weeks.

New members can't post for 1 week. (could just be a few days)

New members have to like 5 posts (could be 10, 15, 20) before they can post.

Daily post limit, or hourly limit.

These are a bit extreme, and not brilliant, but ...

I really hoped we had seen the last of it but sadly not.

Is there any way to set the forum up for membership approval, along with posting approval? Allow all posts by new members to require approval before being posted?

Might I offer the suggestion of a blacklist for certain names like "moderator" or "admin", in as much as the username is not allowed to contain it?

And a way to disable the link in the signature spoofing a different url?

Hate to say it, but without putting a substantial(unfair) amount of workload ...

I really think that at least for now the forum needs to stop new members joining for a little while.

Yes it's extreme but the spam problem is getting worse and worse. Stopping new members being able to sign up at least gives us time to think of a proper idea to prevent it happening.

Yes, the forum is nearly unusable at this point
Stopping member creations till we find a solution is necessary imo

ISP log for the spammers (got to be possible)


This would be possible, but probably not very useful as it can be spoofed or set up through a rented platform, like AWS. A new instance with a new IP can be created manually in minutes, probably seconds automated.


My suggestions are

Signature ...

....
10. Restricting users to a small subset of the forum until they have X number of posts or Y number of days or something similar may help -- the bots will activate and spam those regions instead of the rest of the site.


I like this idea/suggestion, I can't believe that I didn't think to ...

The number 8 suggestion, deleting members who don't post during a period of time...that one would remove many legitimate members.
A large majority of members are lurkers only, and they never post comments or stories. Not sure how much work would be involved in
monitoring members levels of activity ...

I was sick past days, so I couldn’t delete messages. But I saw when no one did something it didn’t increase. So why don’t we all ignore it. Just let the forum go on. It wants attention and if we don’t give it, fun might be over


That's not how this works, they don't care or even know if their ...