Spammers vs new members

[Sir Edward]

I'm still having to keep the forum on manual-verification of new users. Anyone signing up, please feel free to email me (contact info up in the "NOTE" section in the upper part of the page) to make sure you get signed up.

We're getting new users every few days, but they're all spammers. I'm getting to the point where I'm just deleting them as soon as I see them, since they have odd or simplistic usernames and tend to use gmail and other free email systems.

If I delete any real new users by accident, please forgive me, and send me an email!

[Sir Edward]

If you have difficulty joining the forum or creating an account, I can be contact at bones /at/ toton.org.

I've started getting very aggressive about deleting spam-bot accounts, and it's getting harder to tell from email addresses and chosen usernames which ones truly aren't legit. Please, when signing up for an account, send me an email at the above address to let me know you're a real person, so I won't accidentally delete your account.

I deleted seven bots this morning alone.

[Sir William]

Wow...they are really trying hard aren't they?  To do what though, I wonder...

[Sir Wolf]

its cause were elitists and they want into the club hehe

[Sir William]

Ha ha, good point!

[SirNathanQ]

Well, obviously the bots want in to send information about earth's secret historically-based line of defense back to the mothership. 

[Sir James A]

The bots will generally make a post or two like "Wow, great, been looking for this info" in a few threads to make it seem like a "good" new user. But then they create their sig, and the user profile website links, to link to a site generally along the lines of v!agr@ and things of that ilk.

Then as search engines start indexing the forum threads, and since part of the ranking of sites in a search is based on how many pages have linked to the site searched for ... bots with the same link across hundreds or thousands of forums shoots up their rankings in search results.

Better mousetraps make better mice, as they say.

[Sir Edward]

Well, I let the new sign-ups pile up over the weekend and deleted 11 this morning. It's gotten to the point that I'm just outright deleting anything in the formats of "FirstnameLastname" or "FirstnameLastnameX" (where X is some number of digits or possibly random letters), especially if they use a free email service like hotmail or gmail for the account. They tend to use actual email accounts, because most forums require you to reply to an automatic email before you're allowed to post. They got through those AND the captchas before I switched new sign-ups to manual activation.

[SirNathanQ]

ugh, just think how much info they're sending to the mothership? Man, we're in trouble when the main bot visits earth from the home planet!
But really, thats GOT to be damn annoying   
You computer programmers are better folks than I....

[Sir William]

Sir Nathan...you, uh...haven't been a 'guest' on the mothership previously, have you?  lol

[Sir Edward]

Hah, a spam bot tried to sign up this morning named "AntiSpamServerSoftware333". I've never known a knight by that name, have you?

[Sir Brian]

Isn't he the less known half-brother of Sir Spamalot and lady Gwenaspam! 

[Sir Andrew]

 Also known as the son of SirSpamarama2733636.....+1     

[Thorsteinn]

Well, I'm a new guy, and not a spammer, and am currently watching 'The Universe' while it snows here in Sparks, NV.

I hate being sick.

[Sir Edward]

Well, I'm a new guy, and not a spammer, and am currently watching 'The Universe' while it snows here in Sparks, NV.

I hate being sick.

BTW, Welcome to the forum!