I created a public forum for new mothers using PHPBB. It has been running for a few years and last year it started to get registration spam. Bots were creating accounts maliciously. However they cannot spam the forum because they can never get themselves activated. The forum still needs an admin to activate it.
I am not sure why they want to spam a local forum. They really have nothing better to do. I constantly get email, 30-40 emails per day on account creation. I was too lazy to look at the php code to fix it.
Today while I was sick of working, I took a look at the code and fix the spam problems for good. It took me 30 minutes to fix it. Now the forum totally block out spam for good. I haven’t received a single email on activation of account now. They can leave my mail box in peace.
If you want to block out spam in forum, try writing the simple registration form yourselves. It is not that difficult with php. The bots will be clueless on how to spam your forum and they do not want to spend extra time on it. You will be left alone.
