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Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,597
Rep:
The only way we'd drop it to zero is if we were 100% happy with the rest of the solution. That is a long term goal, but we're not there yet and it may indeed never be feasible unfortunately.
I know it's slightly impractical in a large forum such as LQ.org but what about automatically putting into moderation the first post of any new member which contains a link? A moderator can then check whether the link is genuine or spam and then validate or remove the post in case of spam thus preventing the user from getting new posts unless they're genuine. That way, no spammer can even sneak past the back door...
Edit: let me clarify: when I said the first post of any new member which contains a link - I don't mean just their very first post. I mean the first time they post with a link in their post.
That way these posts may take longer to appear and be validated, but once a new user is validated that way, we can be sure it's not a spammer.
Another technique I use successfully on my forum for some time now is to use a couple of custom profile fields to fill in at registration time. Most spammers will not even bother to sign up with the additional hassle and the few who do will fill it with rubbish, thus allowing them to be identified easily.
I know it adds a bit of extra work for people who sign up, but really people don't do it more than once and the slight trouble is definitely worth the amount of spam that's cut out.
Last edited by vharishankar; 12-07-2006 at 08:26 AM.
Distribution: Debian, Red Hat, Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu
Posts: 13,597
Rep:
We're definitely not willing to go that far. I think it's a situation were the solution ends up being worse than the problem. We do indeed do some things on registration and on first post, but our number one priority here at LQ is ensuring it's easy to become a member and quickly post. That's not something we're willing to compromise on.
Well, it would still be easy for a majority of users... only spammers will encounter a problem when they post a link.
Anyway glad to know that you have some advanced spam blocking technology here. Spam is so annoying because on my blog people keep sneaking in with spam in spite of Spam Karma.
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