I have implemented a couple of changes that were made to the European Tribune site to fend off spammers. The first thing I did was create a new user group called “newbies.” This is now the default user group for anyone who signs up for a new account. New users will not be permitted to post diaries. In order to gain that permission, they must earn our trust and someone with administrative powers will have to upgrade them to a more privileged user group. The second thing I did was make it so that newbies cannot use hyperlinks. This makes it worthless to create new user accounts with linkbacks.
I will have to edit the email that goes out to new users to make sure they understand what they have to do to get diary privileges.
You can help us out by using your rating privileges to up-rate comments by genuine newbies and down-rate comments by spammers.
I hope this will gradually end the onslaught of new accounts and eliminate spam diaries. But I still intend to make other changes, including cleaning up my bloated database. I just think this place needs an overhaul. If you want to continue making suggestions, please use this thread to do it. The diaries are turned back on.
