Dear David,
I have noticed a significant and drastic slump in forum activity recently, there are far less regular members posting. The forum is surely but slowly dying. I feel this maybe largely due to the spam activity on the forum. If one looks at the ‘Who is online list’ there are literally several dozens of spam bots/spiders. I feel that something needs to be done about this situation ASAP or we may end up with a forum with more spam bots than real human posters.
Regards,
Surya
I have not looked at the Registration process recently, so I am not sure if this is a part of the registration procedure. Most forums have anti-spam bot registration procedures where they ask the user to verify they are a human user by asking a question or ask the user to provide valid email addresses and/or email validation. I think if you install similar procedures it will drastically bring down the spam bot activity, perhaps even eradicate it completely.
If you see spam, please report it and I’ll delete it ASAP. Thank you 
Well, don’t they say prevention is better than cure? The solution of just deleting spam posts works only insofar as the spam appears on the forum, then there is a delay between the reporting of it, then you receiving the report and taking the action - by that time some damage has already been done.
If you look at the whoisonline list you will see several dozen posters with names like hhkj, ggbts modifying their ignore list or modifying their posts. These are spampots and spiders. One way to deal with them is: Ban all their entries and then, introduce the following into the registration procedure
(a) E-mail validation for all new users
(b) Human user validation for all new users
This will take only seconds for you to implement, and voila the problem will be gone forever.
Here is a copy and paste of the whoisonline list of just the first page:
8a4c5s5x8c
Viewing Index
Yoga Forums
02:18 PM
abfenonle
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:54 PM
abselleaok
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:46 PM
accittabe
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01:44 PM
addictsitadef
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01:54 PM
Alartuttiva
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02:27 PM
Algocaglync
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02:39 PM
Anastasiavjo
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02:47 PM
arbiniomi
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01:50 PM
Assevense
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02:50 PM
atlaidian
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:20 PM
Bedajeadono
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02:54 PM
biogelrale
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:23 PM
CadyCyNcwap
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02:33 PM
cagereawar
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
01:59 PM
carteyrohmk
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02:43 PM
catyaoplaex
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02:28 PM
cconexrekick
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:11 PM
chtypcesfies
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:19 PM
ciimarmachem
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
01:45 PM
comcesybras
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:27 PM
CymnGymnmus
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02:47 PM
dauficdeid
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
01:45 PM
diutriste
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01:57 PM
dmpikbtf
Modifying Contact or Ignore List
02:06 PM
dondodoagrilt
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Yoga for Menopause
02:27 PM
dreatneld
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01:50 PM
drexodopy
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Driptpaisee
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02:14 PM
easectsep
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As you can see, the vast majority of these posters are spambots and spyders. It is the same on every page. In total at this time you have 125 members currently online on the forum and the vast majority of these members are not human(lol) You have a very severe problem of infestation on your forum. You should address this immediately.
A simple CAPTCHA would do the job.
Re-Captcha is a good one.
As analyst programmer, I offer myself to install it in this domain (for free, of course!).
Recaptcha is turned on. It has been broken and doesn’t stop spammers who use the software that utilizes the exploit.
Spammers are registering but very few are getting through and actually posting.
I don’t know much about the intricacies or the jargon of computer programming, but I think the following should work, if you have not tried them already
(1) can be effective, if most free and anonymous email services are disallowed, allowing only email services provided by ISP’s and googlemail should prove be effective.
(2) would be effective because most of the spam-bots seem to have gibberish names like 84h454j, so it would be easy to reject those registrations.