Forums.

[vlasi47gr]

Years ago I had a website that included a forum. I don't remember which one I used. But, I wound up taking it down due to all the spam posts that it received. It seemed that no matter what I tried I just couldn't block them. Are they any better today or are they still subject to excessive spamming? Any advice you may have would be appreciated. I see that this forum doesn't get anywhere near the posts it used to. Hopefully one of you "old timers' can offer some advice.

Nick

[djblalock]

It’s also been a while since I have had a public forum on any of my sites, but I had good luck back then with plug-ins. I remember that a website called Stop Forum Spam had a plug-in for MyBB that kept spammers from even registering.

I recently had issues with bots flooding a Wordpress-based website and I started using Cloudflare’s Firewall to block out potential spammers/brute force login bots with very good luck. I’m sure that the same would help prevent some spam.

[clivejo]

I think once they get a foot hold, they leave markers for other bots to follow. That is one of the reasons why if someone posts a non-sense post, it gets removed and user gets banned. Sometimes, if I'm not sure, Ill check the users details on Stop Forum Spam and 9 times out of 10 they are already on there for the same thing. I know it looks harsh from a third parties point of view, but it's the only way to keep the spammers out!

Also helps having mods in different time zones, who can respond to spam within a few hours.