Maybe give this forum "nofollow" rules if you haven't already. The spam looks like it's written for SEO, so if you have "nofollow" rules to stop search engines linking to our forums, it'll give the spammers one less big incentive to use our forums to advertise their number. Why they want anyone to find their numbers so badly is a mystery. 🤣

I also suggest reworking the registration process. It's too simple to make an account, even with the email confirmation and the captcha. For example, perhaps adding strong registration security questions of interest to manga-readers (e.g. "Which country does most manga come from?" or "From which side would you start reading manga?") might help.

I suggest this because the spam accounts look like human click-farmers who have no brains to match their stupid-l33t copy-paste skills -- the sort who would give up as soon as they are properly challenged. After all, some tasks aren't quite worth $1 per 100 threads (whatever their payrate may be).

I would suggest to have new users perform a captcha check for let´s say the first 10 comments. And maybe set a 24 hour limit between the first and the second comment.
Like the temporarily limits you get if you violate a forum rule. Spam accounts could do way less damage with such a slowdown.

I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
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Quote from residentgrigo

I would suggest to have new users perform a captcha check for let´s say the first 10 comments. And maybe set a 24 hour limit between the first and the second comment.
Like the temporarily limits you get if you violate a forum rule. Spam accounts could do way less damage with such a slowdown.

Agreed on the captcha check and maybe captcha check on posting a comment as well

"I rebel; therefore I am" - Goblin Kingdom (novel)
"I won’t tell him not to envy, but that man sure is a bag of b*tchery" - Sevens (novel)
"Well… let’s just have some fun with it." - Sevens (novel)

Thank you all for your ideas. I'll try to come up with something.

i think lambchop stated in a comment that the accounts were human registration, which invalids majority of these "captcha" criteria in creating accounts.
I agree however, with the comments before me, either use captcha on all comments for the new members who've never posted anything(10-15) first post and a post limit of 1-2 a day. increasing the difficulty in creating an account wont make it harder for the guy who's spamming it, if something it probably will decrease the member registration of people who are not that good with computers.

Unless there's a purpose behind what I see, my guess is that the idea was to get that telephone number associated with services people often search for, like "wifi printer" in Google searches, so some who see it in those search returns would dumbly call it looking for help.

Hmmm. How about allowing only a max of like 5 comments a day? Or every 5 hours? That would give time to ban accounts right? But than again, it limits 'chat' options. Hmmm. Maybe, something that reject titles & ban users when the subject matter has a digit/number string? o3o

While that'll limit an account, it doesn't stop them when they're spamming accounts.

I noticed last night that they were making a new account every 2 or 10 minutes.

i agree with the limit of maybe 5 posts a day. especially for accounts registered for less than a week or maybe make that a month

bots:
https://www.mangaupdates.com/members.html?id=506453
https://www.mangaupdates.com/members.html?id=506405
https://www.mangaupdates.com/members.html?id=506459
https://www.mangaupdates.com/members.html?id=506462
https://www.mangaupdates.com/members.html?id=506457

I think the time it's taking to ban these spamming users has been too long. Heck, there are some who manage to make 300+ posts(!!) before finally being banned.
Instead of preventing them to post, which seems to be hard, there should be an increase in "manpower". Sorry for the lack of a better term.

I suggest giving only a few selected members the permission to ban.
The criteria would be something like:
-Being a member for more than x years;
-Being active;
-Not aggressive;
-etc...
Or whatever the admins think is right.

For example, one user that comes to my mind would be residentgrigo. Just because I see him pretty much everywhere, and he seems rather constructive, even though his english isn't perfect.
But this is just an example. There are surely many others.

I think most of the people who visit this site everyday (just like I do) care a lot about it, and using the power of the community is the best way to fight these spamming members. This, plus the time limits between the first few posts would certainly solve the problem.

Yes, you're worthy!

Holy moly... Seriously? Ok, never-mind then. I'm not sure what to do to prevent the same bot from making an account though... We already have email verification before posting, but since they can by-pass that, idk... @__@

That moment when the spam invades the Suggestions & Bugs section. 🤣
It's getting to pure troll levels at this point.

[img]http://myanimelist.net/signature/BlueHaro.png[/img] [img]http://www.squiby.net/view/2309690.png[/img]

Possible to make Admin/Mod permission required for first post?
After that there should be no issues; I hope.

Link to the News-post.
https://www.mangaupdates.com/news.html?id=64156

Make the new registering members pay in Bitcoins as a deposit muhahahaha! [ >:-( 🤣 ]

jokes aside...

I think the suggestion requiring first post to have an admin/mod permission might backfire because then the spam might overload their 'My Inbox/Admin CP'. I think captcha was suggested earlier but maybe have captcha authentication for every post any member (new and existing) might be a better way to deal with it. Though it might be annoying for people, it is way better (and less annoying) than having to see spam all over the forums.

"I rebel; therefore I am" - Goblin Kingdom (novel)
"I won’t tell him not to envy, but that man sure is a bag of b*tchery" - Sevens (novel)
"Well… let’s just have some fun with it." - Sevens (novel)