Eight Pages of this Sewage!

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These robot messages from the swami astrologer just seem to get more and more prolific. And its already 930 AM Eastern standard time, and the messages are still here! There must be some way to block these messages.

Are "users" blocked by account name or IP address? I would be blocking any IP based on a single abuse. But, then, I am a little more strong-armed than most users.

I have joined forums where a new user has to wait until a moderator approves them, before they can post at all. I am completely mystified why WP apparently allows a new user to post as many new threads as they wish, the minute they have joined.

And WP has been hit by this kind of spam attack week after week, month after month, and year after year. I'm sure there is a kind of "cat and mouse" game involved in blocking spam, with countermeasures followed by new attack methods that require new countermeasures, and so on, ad infinitum. But WP never seems to get beyond the first level; the attacks seem to take the same form every single time...

I don't know of any other forum that suffers from spam at this level.

Other forums require moderators to "moderate" new accounts for the first two weeks by preventing posts from going live immediately. Each and every post must be reviewed first during that moderated period.

Free speech, meet short leash.

The plague that will never end!

You seem to be quite right! The plague is continuing now...

I just don't understand it. Surely someone in charge would look at what is happening, and decide that something has to be changed about the policies, so that newly signed-up members cannot post until approved by a moderator? How hard can it be?

Moderating or waiting to post may have to be an option, but I'd be uneasy about it especially within support forums. Some people join to get immediate feedback and aren't looking to wait until they can get answers to their questions. It could work if there is an active moderation group so that the time period is kept as short as possible.

phpBB does have other methods to help mitigate the spamming. What has been tried and what has not I, obviously, cannot answer though I'm sure some of been investigated. Don't know if it can limit new users to starting only one topic (thread). *edit* It's apparently possible.

Usually, this is a good site, but it has the worst spam on any site I have ever seen. Certain tennis sites I've been on are pretty bad for this kind of stuff, too. The only site I ever knew without this sort of garbage was a Siamese cat site I used to frequent.

Yes, had thought about the point you raise, and for that reason I thought maybe a single post prior to moderator approval, should be allowable. (With it being made clear to the new member when they sign up that they get one shot only (plus follow-ups on that particular thread) until they are "approved.")

I don't think there is any legitimate reason why someone would need to post 15 or 20 separate new threads within minutes of signing up.

Siamese Cats sure know their computers!

This is the reason. We've been pretty good at catching the spam and we had stopped it for a while but this is definitely the worst it has been. I live on the west coast so when I woke up at 7:30am I immediately got rid of everything.

Yes until I either got bullied or lost my password.

Yes, but you (or any moderator) shouldn't need to "get rid of everything," Alex, if users were well and truly moderated by delayed posting unless and until a moderator vets initial posts. Apart from that, I still like the idea of blocking whole IPs who are the likely culprits for spam. When spammers are forced to buy IP addresses by the score, it should get tedious, and cut into their bottom line, if they wish to pursue such activities.

Thanks for your work, Alex.

Me being a Spectrumite: Is it more correct to call "sewage" "sewerage?"

"sewerage" is the system of pipes set up by the municipality to carry off the "sewage". In short: the system of sewer pipes.

The content of the sewer pipes being carried away is the "sewage".

I picked the word "sewage" as a substitute for another word starting with the same letter that has a certain meaning - a meaning that is not unrelated to "sewage".

So "sewage" is the right word.

If anything this website lacks proper "sewerage" to siphon off the "sewage".

Sadly, I think the only thing we really can do is ignore it. We're always being told to ignore trolls and bullies anyway, so why not? It just shows that if they think we're stupid and gullible enough to even reply to the spam just for being on the spectrum, they're dead wrong.