Spam pruning - new users read this!

[SeeAMoose]

Due to the tremendous amount of spam getting through our filters I have decided to periodically prune all users with 0 posts (they have been putting porn links in the website field of their profiles). Any new users who do not want their accounts deleted must make at least one post. I may increase this to 1 or 2 posts in the future if needed, and may consider requiring approval for new users posts.

All the best,
Moose

[Morgaln]

I had major problems with spam bots on my forum a few years ago. They would post in everywhere and hunting their posts down became a chore for my mod team. Personally, I don't like post approval because it puts extra work on the moderators and can keep genuine new members from posting for a while if no moderator is available. Therefore I solved the problem in a different way:

Any new nember gets put in a "Newly Registered" usergroup. There is a special forum that only members of that group can see. This is also the only forum where newly registered members can post. As soon as they make a single post, they get automatically promoted to regular users and can enjoy the site same as anyone else.
What that means is, spam bots can't post anywhere but that particular forum, so the mods can find them by just looking through the posts in that forum. And since that forum isn't public, most spam bot algorithms don't consider it as a viable place to post at all.

As long as I prune users without posts regularly, like you plan to, spam bots are a non-issue that way at next to no work for my team.

Maybe this will help you find a good solution for this that works for you.

[SeeAMoose]

That's not a bad idea, part of our problem though is that phpbb allows users to set a personal website (something I couldn't figure out how to restrict) so a lot of our bots just signed up and set that.

[Inspired]

That's not a bad idea, part of our problem though is that phpbb allows users to set a personal website (something I couldn't figure out how to restrict) so a lot of our bots just signed up and set that.

Here is how I'd do it:

1. Open the database lying under the forum engine
2. Look for the table phpbb_profile_fields
3. Edit the columns field_hide and field_active if you wish to "disable" them from the users.

[WilliamBut]

New forum users can no longer make a post unless approved by a moderator.

This will stop most spam... has the unfortunate side effect of not allowing legitimate users to post immediately.

[WearsHats]

That's true. But we've blocked a lot of spam. Also, as per forum rules, please introduce yourself in one of the appropriate threads.