Spam Deterrent

[ctrl-alt-delete]

Thanks to a bit of inspiration from ST, a new way to combat spam has been implemented. In short, this is what has been put into place:


When a new member registers, they are put into the New Member usergroup, which only has permission to view and post in one forum, called "Welcome to AGN."

An email and a pm is dispatched to them asking them to kindly post in that forum detailing why they would like to join our community. A thread will also be stickied.

Judging by their post (which let's be honest, should be easy to judge) they will either be banned or switched to the Full Member usergroup, which is able to post anywhere on the forums.

As a side note, email verification has been removed as we believe it no longer serves any real purpose and could hinder contributing members from returning, etc.


Within a matter of minutes of being implemented, two spammers posted in said forum and have been dealt with without dirtying up the forum. If anybody has any opposition to this system, please post your questions/comments/complaints here and they will be taken into consideration.

[ctrl-alt-delete]

This method may soon be outdated as I have installed five different methods of spam prevention.

If you'd like to read about them, here are the links.

Akismet
http://akismet.com/

Bad Behavior
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=261498

Is Bot
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=135094

Spam of Matic
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=248042

Typepad
http://antispam.typepad.com/

[Nesseight]

Asking a question that only would-be members of this community should know the answer to is an effective way to reduce robotic registration, and less hassle on your part:

eg). ctrl-alt-delete is the ____________ of this forum.

Anyone saying admin, administrator, leader, designer webmaster, or god would be permitted, failing to get the answer correct should be instaban.

Of course there are likely better questions to ask.

Having multiple forum modifications can lead to complications when upgrading software. (forum code changes, but the modification doesn't get updated until who knows when if ever).