Some may linger longer than others. We try to delete them as quickly as possible, but some of us have to sleep and/or work, and unfortunately can't do both at once. ;)

Maybe we need one of those things that has to read scrambled letters before creating a new thread.

We have a thing where you need to read scrambled letters to register already, so I doubt that would be an efficient way to block the spammers. And about 10% of the spamming posts are put into existing threads, so that won't catch all spams anyway. The spammers would just quit creating new threads and flood our existing threads all the more.

Blocking some spam is better than blocking no spam, but I guess it's easier to clean up if it is just in a thread.

They may already have several sockpuppet accounts already set up. Note how many accounts there are on the forum.

The majority of the spammers show join dates very close to, or on the same days as, the spam that they posted.

I've noticed that the spam rate has dropped, however, my computer logs me out quite frequently. What's going on here.

The spam rate has dropped because we have banned a lot of IPs as well as having several "instant kill" IPs listed.

I have no idea why your computer logs you out.

We now have moderation controls working. There will be little to no spam posted on the message board from now on. Some of the controls may seem like an inconvenience to new members, however after all the spam mess that we have experienced a little inconvenience is worth it.

Agreed. It's a shame we have to bother new members, but it is worth it without a doubt. Little to no spam seen.

I just noticed that there are still plenty of "sock puppet" accounts. I wonder what this is from.

If by "sock puppet" you mean accounts that do not appear to be active, one of our new controls is the ability to check out new members BEFORE they are actually new members.

We also have a LOT of new members to clean up after the spam mess. With over 4,000 new registrations since the first of the year, it will take a long time to get rid of all the "trash".

is there a new update to the war on spam, do you have a new total of account that have been banned for spamming?

Yeah what I meant by sock puppet is a blank account that was set up months or even years ago with no with no activity whatsoever. Most of the accounts on this forum are actually sock puppets.

Since the first of this year there have been over 3,500 bans. Total bans since this message board started is over 4,000 which means that we only had about 500 bans before the spam war started.

There are also over 1,000 stuck in the email confirmation loop. There are over 5,600 non posting members (this does not include those stuck in the email confirmation loop). There are only 153 posting members. The total count of members (which you can see in the "Current Users Online" area) is nearly 11,000.

3,500 spammers, ha ha ha to them, silly fools, but good job to the Staff for doing there best to rid us of them :)

Great success of "Moderators" (i think):)