What is going on here?

[muffinstud]

Is is just me, or are random people abusing the message boards for free ad space and the like?

If so, is there anything we can do to prevent this?

[Anamnesis]

I believe it is more along the lines of automated bots posting this nonsense; it happens in a great many places. That's why, a few months or so ago, there was a thread about guest posting, and whether or not it should be banned.

[Chibi MitchellTF]

I have a big problem with it while moderating MSFHigh. At that site, they manage to even register!

TFBoard, less of a problem. (Banned guest posting).

Do any guests actually POST here?

[Helel]

I have a big problem with it while moderating MSFHigh. At that site, they manage to even register!

TFBoard, less of a problem. (Banned guest posting).

Do any guests actually POST here?

Generally, no. But the idea was to allow guest posting that if someone had log in problems, they could post it here. But as the guest spam gets more absurd, I'd rather have a perma-admin email to send login problems and the like to.

The other one is allow people to do guest posting for RPs and silliness... But all I've seen is just more and more abuse for spam, and less so for forum silliness.

[Mitera Nikkou]

I'd like to do something, as there are ways of taking care of bots making guest posts, but php and mysql is beyond me. And anyone that I know that could possibly help or instruct me on adding mods are... Just not around.

There's more than the reasons given for keeping guest posts than had been mentioned here. Not only is it used for alternate identities and registry problems, but actual people that post here for one reason or another without registering. The bots may be abusing the guest posting, but there are real people that are out there that ask questions, add the odd content or comment, that don't abuse it.

It's fixable as soon as Eirien has time to do something, or someone finds me a mod and can instruct me on how to add it.

[kitten]

this is a wide spread problem. My site was bombarded with these kinds of ads on an almost daily basis until i was forced to disable user commenting.

I had the same problem with my guestbook but I was able to solve it (somewhat) by adding one of those "image nr verification" thingies.

Im using ready made asp scripts and my guestbook script already had this function implemented. I have no idea of how to add it to my news commenting.

anyways, I think that maybe disabling guest posts might be a good idea.. or perhaps just adding one of those "image nr verification" function to the guest account and register form.