New anti-spam technique implemented (mods take note)
 

I'm trying different ways to shut down this ridiculous spam flood. The first thing I'm trying is that I've implemented Akismet to automatically check for known spam in comments. Comments are now sent to Akismet before being posted, and are only supposed to be posted if they are not known spam.

I've set it to only check posts where the user has less than 5 posts, so it won't check us all.

Noticed spam is supposed to go to the moderation queue. Let us see if it works... without slowing down posting too much.

It's $5/month so if it doesn't really work, we'll have to remove it and try something else. If it does work, the cost of filling the tip mug will go up $5.

If it does work, we can shut off moderation of a user's first post.

So known spam will be blocked by Akismet and the Mods don't have to take any action? We'll just be looking for spam that gets past Akismet and also for actual posts by new people so we can approve them?

Do I understand this correctly?

We're gonna have to adjust our practices according to how Akismet is filtering, I think. I don't know if the posts still sit online, in the New Posts to be read, waiting for moderation, or whether they bypass the threads and go straight to the moderation queue.

They don't provide instructions... I figured it out from the vbulletin forum

I've given new users the ability to post threads, in order to see how it works there

OK. There are two spam posts in the moderation queue now. Both posted about 15 minutes before this thread was started. Did they show up before you set up Akismet, or after?

(I left them there in case you want to see them.)

The gaming forum I frequent is having a similar onslaught

REDDIT is being pounded as well.

Those third world people need a hobby: like being dead.

And now there are three; this thing is doing its job!

We should put some retired Navy Seals on that... keep 'em outa trouble during their off time.

groovy... call off the ground strike

Ah no, wait, I have to mark it such that Registered users posts aren't moderated by default.

There, I've set it up and deleted the other posts... NOW we'll see if everything spam is moderated by Akismet

Well stop sending their children your dinner leftovers, then......

And now two spam threads started.
(I'm leaving everything up for now. Not deleting anything in the queue.)

Wolf got them! But anyway, it's clearly working... next, they shouldn't be able to start threads and mess up the thread listing. I'll turn that off for new users.

What if we charged a dollar to join the cellar?

I'm sure there would be legal and business consequences that would make it not worthwhile, but it'd screw the spammers, eh?