bound2burst.net

In an effort to stop spam being posted on this board, I have now set permissions so that newly registered users must be approved before their account is activated. Since setting this, I have already received 7 requests to activate new user accounts. Given that this board has been operating for nearly 3 months and has just over 100 registered users (an average of 1 new user per day), it is clear that most if not all of the requests are spam.

In order to have a new account approved, you will need to write to me using the e-mail address on the front page of the B2B website and tell me who you are. Make sure you write enough to make it clear that you are a real person. I may also test the e-mail account from which you write to ensure that it is valid.

I apologise for the inconvenience this will cause, but banning Bots has had no effect on the increasing amount of spam, and at the moment this is the only way I can see to inhibit it.

Those registered before 16th February should not be affected.

Dave.

Hi Dave,

I understand your situation and I agree that some drastic measures must be done, but have you considered that this would probably drop the number of new participants to absolutely zero? This is a fetish board. Anonymity is everything to most people here. Not many people would jump through too many hoops for the privilege of participating, and without "new blood", message boards die out over time.

If so, then that's how it must be I'm afraid. The number of spam messages was increasing rapidly, and I have already received 15 bogus sign up requests today from the system. This is the only way I can be sure I'm letting in a real person. Besides, so many people write to me anyway that I doubt if they are especially worried about me knowing their e-mail address. It's not in my interest to share that information with anyone else.

I suppose we'll have to wait and see.

These measures appear to be working. Since they were implemented, there have been 48 bogus requests for registration approval (17 the first day, 26 the second day, and 5 so far today) and one genuine. Had I not done this, the board and some of your messages would now be awash in spam.

Installing a better captcha could also work.