Have you guys thought about adding one of those anti-spam word boxes that display a random series of funky looking letters to the sign up page?

On another website I frequent, the administrator apparently blocked access to the site from China. We don't get many spam posts anymore, so whatever he did worked.

Ya, We've suggested that. A "Capcha" screen to login to prevent bots. Allot of our spammers come from India.
-Jake

I still fail to see why they even post. What do they get out of it. It is rare that the post will remain more than a few hours and often it is deleted as soon as it appears. After looking at the spams and deleting them I look at who is on line and bag a few more before they even post. Whack a mole. I end up banning several hundred a month.

They probably get paid no matter how long a post stays up on a site as long as it gets posted.

I've noticed less posts in general. Used to be that yesterday's threads were on page 2 today. It appears to me this forum is losing readers. I come because I don't want to find another forum. If there are better, please let me know. A PM is fine.

The threads that bug me are titled "what bow do you shoot" then 50 people respond. It bothers me because the post where someone is asking for advice on how or where to hunt hogs in Texas (for example) receives few responses. I admit this is my sole opinion and not necessarily that of others as is certainly shown by those responding. But, I truly don't give a rats a$$ which bow you shoot.

Just like a TV channel, I am able to avoid the threads I dislike. So, it doesn't keep me away. It just amazes me how many respond to certain threads and how many won't provide useful advice to those requesting it.

IMHO most of the questions that don't receive any answers or very few is because there just aren't people that have done what the OP is asking or hunted where they are asking about. The example you gave about where to hunt hogs in Texas did not receive many posts because very few people pay to hunt down there because it's almost all private land hunting and the fees aren't what I would call cheap just to kill a pig or two.

I have run/moderated several Forums. The open setup of this forum causes a lot of the issues. The size of it also contributes. They could shut it down tight, but then it would basically die. These type forums pretty much operate on some core members that choose it for their primary forum, but the majority of the number of members are relatively non-participants when it comes to daily posting. In order to gain the new members that actually post you need a LOT of members coming and trying it out. Basically if you lock it down where a mod has to accept new member case by case the number of people that actually come back 1, 2 or 3 days later to see if they were accepted is less then 10% in my opinion. Also when you do that It slowly chokes the site to death. As the core members move on the other things or get busy in the off season the site loses content making it not as appealing to new members. FYI this is just my experience, but as stated before I have seen it happen many times.

On the larger sites I ran it was nothing to boot 70 spammers in an evening.

My hat is off to the mods here they do a good job.

I don't think most of them are even actual people, just programs.