my forum is constantly being attacked by spam bots leaving there marks. I've tried to get rid of them via the recapture, email verify nothing is working?!?! what can i do?
The forum link in your signature doesn't load here so I can't even see what forum is it (phpbb, vbulletin, etc.) Did you try to search in google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=protect+forum+from+bots ?
same thing happened to me. Googling my forum will show the Spam too. What I did was delete the top General Discussion forum for a day and they stop coming back.
StopForumSpam integration will save your sanity. There are mods for www vbulletin org/forum/showthread.php?t=176481 - vBulletin custom simplemachines org/mods/index.php?mod=1547 - Simple Machines Forum www phpbb com/community/viewtopic.php?f=70&t=1349145 - phpBB (You'll have to copy and paste the links and add dots as I'm a newbie here) Does not get them all, but will nab a majority. Also, ban mail.ru and gawab.com e-mail addresses. They're about half of my spammer issue.
By recapture, do you mean ReCaptcha? The last time I heard, ReCaptcha has not been broken by the spam bots. Also, are you sure its ReCaptcha and not regular captcha? The regular captcha has been broken by spam bots, but not ReCaptcha. Vbulletin has a built in image verification system. Upload 5, 6 or 7 images. and ask your new membes to click on a certain image. There is no way for a bot to pick the right image. Vbulletin also has a question and answer verification built in. These options are in the left column of your admin control panel - human verification options.