New movies forum, need advise
url: newmoviesforum.com
movies forum need help

hi i need advise, i'm getting bots signing up and posting many promo links,
i'm having a hard time getting a moderator, this is my first forum, where can i get one?
real people aren't posting,
what to do?

If it's robots defecating on your floor, don't make a human clean it up. Tech problems tend to work out best with tech solutions. Set up a moderation system to block spam by IP address and by URLs in the text.

I'm sure that kind of thing already exists. I mostly write my own software instead of playing with third-party systems and frameworks. I could build something to auto-moderate spam posts by IP, URL, and other content if you'd like in two hours max. I'm pretty sure you're running Apache on Linux, while I'm a C# and Windows developer. I'm not writing what I could do to sell you on anything, just trying to give you a reference point.

Computers can't solve all that many problems in life, but this is one of them. There are, or can easily be, more 'bots than moderators ... probably the most common way to break a security system is for software to just keep guessing passwords, sometimes hundreds of thousands per second. Give your moderators something more interesting to do, and something that requires more smarts than a software application can have.

Originally Posted by ForrestCroce

If it's robots defecating on your floor, don't make a human clean it up... Computers can't solve all that many problems in life, but this is one of them...

You da man...

One thing that will stop the majority of signup bots instantly is to change the name of the "I have read the rules ..." checkbox

As this is standard on every forum put up, using whatever "out of the box" forum script. So every vBulletin forum it is called "agree" , signup bots already have this form field hardcoded to "checked", change the name and they can't signup.

Change the name of "register.php" if possible, then when the bots POST to the page it 404s out.

On another point;

Why do you have a "webmaster forum"

If you are wanting to be a Movie forum then GET RID OF IT making doubly sure that the link exchange cat goes away and stays away, NOTHING will attract more disinterested signups that that will.

same with the webhosting and SEO cats, both will be spam magnets. Get shut of them.