Spam bots are wrecking my forum again

[Den]

Anyone else getting hammered by these junk signups lately? I clean them out and they just keep coming back. It’s getting annoying fast. I’ve tightened the usual stuff but it still feels like I’m playing whack-a-mole. Curious what you guys are using that actually helps.

[adrian_knox]

Yeah, same here. The junk signups have been ridiculous the last couple weeks. Honestly the only thing that’s helped even a little is making registration annoying enough that the bots move on. Honeypot + email verification + a dumb little question that humans can answer in 2 seconds, but the scripted crap trips over. Still not perfect though, obviously. If you’ve already got the usual stuff on and they’re still slipping through, I’d start looking at where they’re coming from. Same IP ranges, same email domains, same weird browser fingerprints, whatever. Half the time it’s the same garbage wearing a different hat. And yeah, “clean them out” is basically the job now. Real fun.

[Author]

Posts