SPAM!!! (CLOSED) (CLOSED)

WTF is up with all this spam??? Ban the IP addresses!!

Yes  it's slowly starting to get on my nerves. I also wonder what the spammers get out of it???? Kopecks for every 100th word?

Maybe we should gather a few ideas here and discuss how this could be avoided. 

Probably spam bots...

Holy shit, I just reported like 20 already

Since verifying an account's email clearly has no impact on spam bots, I propose some options:

1. New accounts should be required to fill mandatory security checks such as CAPTCHAs before threads appear on the forum.

2. Accounts should be strictly limited from creating an unlimited number of threads within a certain period. There is no reason why anyone legitimately needs to create more than 3 threads at a time.  

3. Perhaps forum participation should be limited to people who have bought something on the site (since a purchase generally, either by credit card, paypal or whatever would validate a human being) as well as as creatives who have products for sale. Just a thought.

The RH staff is doing a good job
When I got up this morning there were 55 PAGES of spam in the Latest Posts category

Spam has been posted again.
I have reported it, but it would be better to take fundamental measures.

Until I become omnipotent and am able to deal with the problem globally, I feel that the third point mentioned by wesley23 would be the most effective.
I read the tech news daily and spammers are using a host of techniques to get through captchas.

I reported a few of these too.  they disappeared fairly quickly.  

Having some sort of threshold participation in the site,  prior to gaining the privilege to post a forum thread,  might thwart some of these random spam messages. 

Or you could make it dependent on the karma  most spammers have very little.  

For  let's say 140  a certain number of likes would first have to be awarded, and only then (140+) would it be possible to open threads in the forum. Before that, users could only participate in discussions, for example.

This Bot is posting its spam faster than Renderhub is able to delete.
Just reported 10, page refresh and already new spam.

Or, there is the option to have to register to use the forum for all new users. And the request would have to be approved by admin  which means they have to provide a legit email address.

Spam, scams and downright hacking and thievery are getting more prevalent and underhanded as they become big business.  In some Asian and African countries, the governments are encouraging and supporting it behind the scenes because it's very lucrative.  There's been some excellent articles on Wired News and SlashDot the past few months about it.  Those romance scams, believe it or not, bring in around 3.5 billion US every year from the US.   These operators hold poor people hostage in huge facilities and force them to work 20 hours a day sending spam, operating scams, making fake reviews on sales sites like Amazon and anything else that makes a buck.  On a higher level, governments of North Korea, China, Russia and Iraq among others, sponsor sophisticated hacking programs to get into Western systems and both steal technology and plant bombs to try and bring the infrastructure down.
As a private citizen there's little we can do except use a good email provider (Hushmail is my choice) and be smarter than the crooks.  Why governments and corporations have important stuff online is beyond me.  It's so simple to just unplug from the net and keep a simple front end online for users.

I really and trullio love the idea of only allowing folks who have purchased stuff to post in the forums.