So, since I opened my board about a month ago (and avertised it all over creation), I've had the occasional spammer put up viagra ads, other ads, links to porno sites, etc. I delete them as soon as I spot them and I've given my players the power to delete them, too, so they don't tend to last long.

I log in this morning and find a spam post with not just an annoying bunch of links but graphic pornographic pictures. Now, one of my players is 16 years old, so I'm pissed. I check the email address on the post, ban that domain from my board, and head off to a picnic. I come back a few hours later and find not one, but two posts, from the same guy, full of the same kind of stuff. Fake email, apparently. Now I'm really steamed.

I have my own domain, so I make a note of the time on one of the posts before deleting them, then pull up the access logs to get the IP address of the spammer (which does not match the email -- what a surprise). Track the IP back to the ISP, note down the IP range, head over to my IP Blocker. While I'm doing this, I'm monitoring Who's Online and who do I see back again, about to post more of his filth in my guest-friendly area? Yes, it's the same guy.

So, I block the entire ISP and watch with considerable satisfaction as as soon as he hits enter, the IP block punts his post and his behind out of my domain and back to Germany, from whence he came.

Ten minutes later, I'm doing an instant replay, this time with a Ukrainian viagra spammer. Delete the post. Consult the access log. Find the IP in Who's Online back posting again. IP block. PUNT!

They are like freakin' cockroaches.

Ugh, that's annoying. I've never experienced things like that with active boards (actually, the only time I had spammers was when I visted an old board of mine about three months after it closed and found a whole forum full of porn... Very weird). How do they even find these places to spam? =/

It's good that you know some programs or codes or whatever that can block them, though. More than I, and many other admins, know of. :] Hope the problem stops soon!