One thing I've found that stops all automated spamming is changing the image verification system from GD to ImageMagick. I'm not sure if its the smoother custom fonts or some sort of hole in GD, but the spambots do not seem to get past the CAPTCHAs like they did when they were generated using GD.

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* Thanks, I'm on my way over to check it out.

I personally approve all the registrations on the sites I directly control, so those sites have no problems with spammers. I am hesitant to even admit a member who's IP and self-identified geographical location do not match up.
If you claim to be in Surrey, but your IP says you are in Saudi Arabia; I am always suspicious. I really hate dynamic and proxy IP addresses...lol

Every available tactic in our webmastering bag of tricks is worth investigating, so I'll give that Nospam! hack(?) a try. Anything to make my life easier.

B.

I can tell you that some people are hesitant to employ image verification -and I'll tell you why.

Sometimes people have a difficult time distinguishing between a small and capital letter; or even identifying the stylised letter or number at all. People have actually given up trying to register on a site because they simply couldn't negotiate the image verification system successfully.

I will confess, to my embarrassment, that this has happened to me on more than one occasion. I simply threw my hands up in disgust, and gave up trying to register because I couldn't enter the image sequence successfully. Some of those images (numbers, letters) are ridiculously obscure.

Personally, I was tickled recently when asked during registration: ' are you a spammer?'
Was that here at Adminfusion?...lol


B.

That was here

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...some super-sweet signature

To be honest, if users can't read it [I've made it easy enough for them] then they can stay unregistered It's likely they won't read the rules properly either. There's a reason I banned @aol emails too...

However, if you don't like image verification, NoSpam is a GREAT alternative.

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You sound like a ruthlessly imperious administrator. I really admire that

Best regards,

B.

I have a bunch of mods from vBulletin installed that have pretty much killed all spam dead in it's tracks before it can get on the site..

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You're so jaded.. and I'm the one who jaded you!

Mind listing them for us please?

I use that on all of my forums, also use this: Will you read the rules?

Be sure to browse the different forum softwares. If you have vb, our vb section is full of tips & tricks.

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Okay then.