Lately there has been quite a few more spambots frequenting our forums than we would like (the number we would like is zero!).
Over the past month the following changes have been enacted to help combat some of the spam:
1. Spam-O-Matic settings were tweaked to be stronger and more strict, as well as more restrictions were imposed on accounts under "New User" (default account when you register - the system checks every 5 minutes to see who has a post of 1 or higher to move them into "Registered Users" and give them full permissions).
2. Our Honeypot has been tweaked to be more strict on IP addresses the visit the site (unfortunately this may also affect some users unintentionally if set too strict, so we can't push it much further).
3. I've installed a product to help combat some spam as the bots are somehow bypassing restrictions in place from Spam-O-Matic. This new plugin requires a post count of 1 before links are posted in any forum section. We'll have to see if spambots are able to get around this as well.
Unfortunately, some spammers do bypass our system, and this sometimes isn't the fault of the system itself - some of the spammers may be human and posting spam manually. In these cases, if they follow our forum procedures and gain their first post count and then post their spam - the system wont pick it up.