Why don't you make registering a bit more difficult?

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Maybe a two step procedure or something. It would prevent all these spambots

Great idea OOM, hope someone sees this.

Most forums don't have these problems with spam bots, because there are pretty simple ways of dealing with it, it's just kind of mind boggling that it keeps happening here.

^ most forums are smaller and more well guarded than this one.

Actually we are pretty small and but I don't know about how well guarded.

We are much lower then even Ubuntu forums on Google Trends. Add reddit and 4chan to that and Wrong Planet's not even in the picture anymore. We aren't huge and in fact no one cares lol. I would imagine we get picked on more because we represent a quote on quote disabled community. When I got disability in the US, my cell phone started getting all the scams calls. Trolls want to hurt the disabled and scammers think they can get a quick buck off the disabled. Its a sick world really but they probably target who they think are weak in their eyes.

i suppose you're right.

i am just thankful the actual, malicious trolls are relatively few and far in between.

True but keep in mind that these mega forums which appeal to the mainstream have teams of developers who are constantly working on improving the sites and also preventing spam. I'm the only one working on these issues and money is tight so hiring outside developers is something I do sparingly.

I've been trying to figure out how to add more challenges on the registration page (such as a question only a human could answer which is what we had on the old software) but I'm not as familiar with Wordpress as I was with the software we used to originally power the site).

^ there we go. thanks for the info.

i distinctly recall answering a question or receiving an email when i registered on the old forum software, i wasn't aware that had been taken out. that alone explains something....

the email verification is still there

The forum did not require email verification when I registered, and I'm new. In fact, I found that strange. I know for a fact this is true because I registered on my phone, and I do not have this email account on my phone.

Many forums simply require members to write a brief introduction before approval, or before allowing unrestricted posting. It takes a bit of time to sift through those, but it also takes time to delete pages full of spam threads.