What are your ideas to fight spammers here on mahalo?

You guys are doing great reporting spam! I love to find the report log chuck full of spammers for me to vanish or ban altogether. Keep up the great work with that shiny red report button, it is your friend.

:) I would like to see a Captcha sign up filter but this is not going to happen as it is thought to put a dent in the total number of sign ups. (I thought that was the idea) I feel it would put a good dent in sign ups by not allowing the spambots to sign up.. I mean those are the folks we do not want signing up to begin with so of course there would be a dent or a slow down in sign ups... the good kind of slow down. I ban easily about 50 to 100+ spambot created accounts a day these would be eliminated by a Captcha sign up filter.

This one is awesome - server251.theory.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/esp-... But otherwise I would like to see strict limits placed upon new users and the number of postings they can go with right away. Much of the problem currently is in the way they are doing it now, the spambots and others sign up and all in less than a minute they have posted the maximum amount of content they can as a new user and 100% of it is spam. 32 spam postings instantly just by signing up.

Multiply that by 100+ (and all of the others I do not catch) and we can see the scope of the problem. We can stop that like this... Right now a new user White belt can ask 2 questions, give 20 answers, and leave 10 comments. All of these can be spam within a second of a new user signing up.

I would suggest that all of these numbers be reduced to 2 until that new user earned a single best answer and then the limits go back to normal. By asking them to get a best answer after signing up we have stepped around the Captcha sign up filter and are still letting anyone and everyone sign-up BUT still force them to prove they are human by requiring them to get a single best answer before allowing any participation above 2 questions, 2 answers, and 2 comments and day. 32/sign-up instant spam postings at the sign up to 6.

- Bingo. :).

Brian I think your idea is a good one, however I think the current system, no matter how flawed is working and Buddawiggi is an outstanding guardian against these guys. He is on top of it. Sometimes I see a spammer and then when I click on the question, sometimes right away, I see that he has already eliminated the person and there is no sign that they have ever been there.

Now on the other hand these spammers are not really ever going away, especially as Mahalo gets bigger, growth brings more and more spammers and this is going to continue. However if everyone would not only vote people down, but report them, then they would make Buddawiggi's job that much easier. I notice a lot of people vote them down but they fail to report them, and that would help tremendously.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.