This one is pleasant to use and free! I'm not sure how you use one on a site, but adding it to the register page and the posting page for anonymous users would probably help stop spam quite a bit. 

Just use a simple security question. 

Is it? I mean, that's the version offered by google, of all people. 

I looked it up, it does seem to be broken. Still, it seems like it would be a sufficient barrier to entry for the no doubt low-effort spammers we have right now. I feel like a security question would be easier to target for them, would it not?

In other words, why use something that's even more broken than something else just because that thing is broken?

Also, would the bots (I assume) that target this site be purpose built? I mean, we're not running on vBulletin after all. 

"Is it? I mean, that's the version offered by google, of all people."
Yeah, and Google would NEVER want to compromise your security, right...? 

I'm pretty sure if Google wanted to compromise someone's website they'd have better ways to do it than captcha. Well, I'd hope so. It'd be kind of sad otherwise. 

They've already shown the extent of their will to spy on your privacy, I don't think they give a shit about any other's security but their own. 

Why do we even allow anon posting anyway? 

Exactly, why?
(people using Tor will start to cry in 3... 2... 1...) 

why don't i start by bringing back error 71. I don't think that guy from facebook ever came back. 

error 71 check is back.

The reason to allow anonymous posts is to lower the bar to entry for outsiders who have something legitimate to offer. E.g. someone from another community who wants to just drop in a link or some info, but it's not worth it to them to make yet another account on yet another website to do so.

As for hiding spam entirely from users once flagger, i agree that it should happen. The one tricky part of that is also hiding it from the "New X" links on the forum page. Right now what would happen with 7 new spam posts is that you would see "New 7" and then click through and see zero posts and get confused. But i could still do it that way now and hide the "new x" links later. 

And make a news post to warn the members that "missing" posts are blocked spam. 

What's the error 71 thing, out of interest? 

it's when your IP address matches that of a previous spam post 

 

 

I've seen the recent spam posts mostly consist of posts with empty bodies, whenever I happened to see a few before they were deleted. Would it help to lower the spam volume if the forum prevented posts with no message body or very short ones from users who are not logged in?

Forum regulars who want to make these brief commenting-only-in-the-title posts can always log in before posting. Others would get redirected to a page saying your post is not allowed because the message body is too short. You'd have to find an appropriate low limit so as not to stop legitimate short posts people sometimes make.

I don't have the info to tell if this would stop enough spam to be worth it, or be a hassle to real people posting useful stuff. I'm just suggesting it, because it sounds fairly quick to implement and test; and easy to remove if it turns out not to help enough. 

 

who's this newly registered "Error 71" joker then? 

No title text. 

If that is really their ip address:

88.111.208.111
ISP Name TISCALI UK LIMITED
City Name LONDON
Region Name ENGLAND
Country Name UNITED KINGDOM
Country Code UK
Latitude 51.500152
Longitude -0.126236
Zip Code -
IDD Code + 44
Time Zone +00:00
 

Comes up as Glasgow for me...

http://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/88.111.208.111 

I got Headingley at another site. They don't always get the details right anyway.

The address was actually 88.111.208.111 I just copy/pasted wrong. I think that Tiscali own the whole block though. 

and I did it again /facepalm

88.111.208.81