Ok, it's high time we cracked down on spam bots. I've noticed an exponential increase in the number of new members we have to ban because they are spam bots, or just spammers in general. Case in point, I did a quick count of the number of banned members within the last 100 registrations (going back about a month and a half) and the total was 34. 34% of our registrations have been spammers!
So, in a George Bush-esque way, I am declaring an atheist war on spam. I'm investing a lot of time into various spam-prevention and spam-catching methods, which will hopefully reduce the amount of spam we get.
The first is already available in the form of an Akismet plugin. Akismet is a very popular application that is usually installed on blogs to prevent comment spam. They track spam messages, as well as usernames and email addresses of spambots. When a new message is posted, it is first checked to see whether it is spam or not, and this affects whether it is actually posted.
Of course, as with any new change to the forums, there are bound to be problems. If any of your posts are mistakenly marked as spam, please let us know.
Also, if anyone has suggestions on other methods to decrease spam, please share your ideas
-Adrian
So, in a George Bush-esque way, I am declaring an atheist war on spam. I'm investing a lot of time into various spam-prevention and spam-catching methods, which will hopefully reduce the amount of spam we get.
The first is already available in the form of an Akismet plugin. Akismet is a very popular application that is usually installed on blogs to prevent comment spam. They track spam messages, as well as usernames and email addresses of spambots. When a new message is posted, it is first checked to see whether it is spam or not, and this affects whether it is actually posted.
Of course, as with any new change to the forums, there are bound to be problems. If any of your posts are mistakenly marked as spam, please let us know.
Also, if anyone has suggestions on other methods to decrease spam, please share your ideas
-Adrian
