NEW MEMBERS...

[ezdays]

Just had another spam attack, I think we need to make the registration question harder.

The registration question and the CAPTCHA is designed to keep bots from registering. Regardless of the question, when a human comes knocking, we usually open the door. Some of these humans are paid for registering. We can tell these types because they register one day, and it's a day or so later before they come back and post. Other spammers do their own dirty work and seem to post within minutes of registering. In any case, it's difficult to keep spammers from registering once a human is in the equation.

I'll grant you one thing, we need to change our question more often then we do. I think a lot of non-English speaking "human-bots" learn the answer and can continue to register blindly. I will make a change this morning and will do so more often.

Some other things we do that you don't even see is use a filter of known spammers by name and IP address. We also are made aware every time someone registers here and if their username or email address looks fishy, we do a bit of research and frequently can ban them before they have a chance to post. For example, if "johnboy123" registers, but his email address is, "buymeds@yahoo.com", you can be assured he'll be spamming us so we get him before he gets us.

The higher up we get on search engines, the more we will see spammers lining up at our doorstep. Because of people like yourself and others that report spam quickly, and a very vigilant staff, spammers don't stand a chance here. Sometimes it's a game to see how fast we can remove spam from the time it's posted. I know of some forums where spam can sit around for days or weeks without anyone doing anything. :o On the other hand, not too many people visit those sites either and you don't have to wonder why.