False "Topic reply notification" email

[Thomash]

Also, there is account approval too, but that would result in delayed accounts on the forums, and would most likely have a negative impact as well.

IMHO the wait is definitely worthwhile. There's lot of communities approve account by man rather than machine. We just have to make sure the good-faith applications won't fall into the bottomless pit.

[Charybdizs]

Pity there is no way to trace the origin of the spambots so we can destroy that person's life.

That's a VERY heartless statement, Zack.

But to be serious, one thing I've seen is that over on the srb2 message board and wiki, there is an image of Sonic, (or Tails or Knuckles I presume) and it asks you who it's a picture of before it lets you join. I'd like to see a spambot get around that!

And I can't BELIEVE the spambots could read the old Captcha's.
I remember having to read one of those when I first joined. Ugg, it took me a few tries.

[Blitz Lunar]

regarding manual activations - i think it's less effort on our part to just delete accounts/posts than it is to activate every account that registers. so i think how things are right now, much as they suck, is the best option.

honestly spam has become a real problem in many places i go lately, and i'm not sure why. snesmusic forums and vgmdb have been having problems too.

[CBlockDis]

This is the only forum I actually post in at all anymore, so I have no clue what it's like elsewhere. I do remember the horrors of spambots prior to captcha though.

[Powerlord]

After one entire day with no new users, it's too early to claim victory, but it looks like that new form field may be working to block bots.