[kilerb]

How can I get rid of this?   So many spam posts.... 

 http://www.mmaunderdogs.com/forum/index.php?board=1.0

So frustrating..

Thanks for any advice!  I looked through a couple forums but didn't see any fixes for 1.1

[hadesflames]

Those all seem to be bot posts. As I have stated before, image captcha checks, however tough you may make them, rarely work against bots, in fact it's more likely to get your REAL human registrants to fail the check than a bot =P

The best way to stop bots from signing up to your forums at this time is to use those seemingly simple checks such as "what is 1+1?" you're human users will have absolutely no trouble answering this question, and bots probably won't be programmed to look for these specific questions. The more random you make those questions, the harder it will be for bots to sign up if they are not programmed to handle that specific question. Look around the mod sight for this type of captcha check, i'm sure it will trim down a large percentage of your bots. Also if you can find one that will have a list of these questions, and show a random one on each sign up, it will be that much more effective.

Hope this helps =]

[MrPhil]

image captcha checks, however tough you may make them, rarely work against bots

Say what?? A good image CAPTCHA is, in fact, quite effective against most bots. They should be your first line of defense. You may also want to add an "are you human" check. Note that more and more spammers are using Third World farms of humans to conquer CAPTCHA checks and register on your site. That's why they're less effective than they used to be.  They can also forward your CAPTCHA images to porn sites to be broken there, so it's important that a CAPTCHA image expire rather quickly.

[kilerb]

Thanks so much for the quick replies.  I really appreciate it...  I'm a total novice when it comes to the SMF forums....  Are these features you're mentioning built into the forum board and I just have to activate them, or do I have to download it somewhere and install it?  If so, do you have a link to a good one?

Thanks again!

[hadesflames]

image captcha checks, however tough you may make them, rarely work against bots

Say what?? A good image CAPTCHA is, in fact, quite effective against most bots

poorly coded bots. The bots getting into his forum are clearly not being stopped by his image captcha check...I'm not suggesting image captcha checks are completely useless so you should get rid of it, in fact I agree with what you say, They should be a first line of defense, but with more advanced bots (the ones that are going to be able to get through his image checks) the image checks will fail to stop them, that's where these human checks are very useful, as they tend to stop a large majority of bots.

Thanks so much for the quick replies.  I really appreciate it...  I'm a total novice when it comes to the SMF forums....  Are these features you're mentioning built into the forum board and I just have to activate them, or do I have to download it somewhere and install it?  If so, do you have a link to a good one?

Thanks again!

.Lock seems to be interested in making anti bot mods. Take a look at those mods (he has three for anti bots) and pick one out. They all look pretty good to me.

[Kill Em All]

I use these two mods and have no problems on my forums with spam.
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=999
http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1547

They are nice because they dont both the real user who wants to use your forum for good no inconvenience.

[JimM]

I also use this mod and even though they may register, they can't post links so they just go away.  Once every 90 days or so I purge them out of the database.

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1095