[Mega Mario]

I get these members where they join, they make like 1-5 posts on the first day with something like


"Hey look at this
*posts a porn link*"


Then they don't do much else. At first I was thinking to just ban them and use IP ban with wildcard and just banning the domain address with the email ban, but no matter how much I do it, they eventually come back.

Does anyone have an idea of how to get rid of them,?

[Ryan]

Chop of their heads...their buddies will start to get the message

No, just kidding...what software are you using?

[Nora]

I had the same problem.. having them activate their account before being able to post helped a lot. Haven't had a spam message since.

[Mega Mario]

Invision Power Board 2.0
and I did that and they still do it.

[Ryan]

I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but my advice would be to upgrade to IPB 2.1 or 2.2...IPB 2.0 is not widely supported these days, and I don't believe that it is officially supported at all by IPS, is it?

There were bugs and holes in 2.0 that were fixed in 2.1, but IPS never offered patches for 2.0...so unless you patched them yourself or found a third-party patch, you'll continue to have these bugs.

Try asking at www.invisionize.com if you haven't already...somebody might know there.

[Mega Mario]

I did ask for a mod to suggest, but no. I should try the idea though.

I wish I could get enough money to get a license though, I just hate the high prices.

[Hex]

We had this problem at a forum I admin at. We were using IPB 2.1.7, and the same thing happened. We recently switched over to vBulletin, and it has seemed to go away

[D12Eminem989]

Yeah, I currently run a vBulletin board and I have it set to validate members before they can post. So this helps reduce the spam. I do not like my idea of doing this but it seems to work.

[DrkSnpr14]

IPB and especially Invisionfree boards are bad for spam bots getting through. When we were on IF, we were getting 4 or 5 of them daily. I was forced to turn on administrative approval for new accounts.

I suggest copying and pasting all the email addresses on this list here - List of SPAM email addresses? into your banned emails. Those are confirmed spam bots, and might cut down on your spam.

And always ALWAYS use the wildcard system when banning spam emails. A * symbol cover all variables, meaning *@domain.com will get everyone who uses that email service, or in this case, their website. Spam bots will often return with a new alias. (bob@domain.com, jeff@domain.com, ect.)