Filtering spam on phpBB

LoneIgadzra

I run this webboard in a volunteer capacity.

We have a problem: Massive amounts of spam on a daily basis, some of it containing explicit images.

This is exacerbated by the fact that phpBB's admin tools are total garbage and let me do almost nothing about it except ban IP's/emails and delete users, and those only very very clumsily with terribly difficult-to-work-with interfaces. I've enabled all the anti-bot protection.

Hardcore images in bot-generated spams are a lawsuit in the making for the Instant Boats web site. So how in God's name do I stop it?

And why the hell can't my mods ban users from posting?

I hate phpBB.

PirateJon

require all new account to be approved before posting? Or check the phpBB forum's anti-spam thread?
http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=393503

DVG

I threw in the towel on the war against spambots and just set it up so you don't have any posting rights unless I add you to a usergroup, and you have to PM me to do that. There are a ton of spambots registered on my board, but the worse they can do is have links in their profile that no one ever looks at.

Lewisham

I run the board for the Sexy Beasts WoW guild over in the Warcraft forum.

I have captcha's turned on, and email registration too.

There is still spam.

Somewhere, humans are being paid to spam their little board.

Approval of new accounts is the only way to fix this.

LoneIgadzra

Here is a the problem with that though: I do not have time to approve all new accounts in a timely manner. I check this forum about twice a day and let my mods handle the rest. There is no way to allow mods to approve new accounts, so it's all on me. I've rarely visited a forum where I had to wait for approval of my new account, and I've never seen 20 spam posts containing pornographic images on a forum either, but I'm regularly confronted by that type of thing on my forum.

My ideal solution would be to simply require approval of new users being able to post images, and deal with textual spam as per usual.

Echo

Akismet.