elderberry, elderflower, and everything in between

Argh.... I hate spammers.

Yesterday and today I was hit by some sort of bot program that's creating dozens of "dummy" member names here on elderberries.ning and posting hundreds of discussions and blog posts for prada handbags, etc. It's rather infuriating to see my site overrun by this junk. I've banned all the offending usernames and deleted that content both yesterday and again today, but I'm not sure how to prevent it from happening again. So I can only ask, if you come here and see the site covered in prada handbag and replica watch junk, please be patient... I will get rid of it, and if this continues, I'll find a way to tighten the posting requirements to ensure it doesn't keep happening.

Thanks, everybody!

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Permalink Reply by Amy Boyd on March 21, 2013 at 12:53pm

Thanks, Alice - I've blocked him too. Sorry about that. Spammers have been targeting this site a lot lately, and it's so frustrating! I have blocked every one of their ip addresses, I require people to fill out those funky little number/word combos, I even added a new signup question that forces people to actually read and answer before they can sign up, and yet they still keep coming. I've banned probably 500 members in the last month and a half.

I've finally taken the step of requiring admin approval before anyone can join the site. I hate having to do that, since it'll inconvenience real members, but I don't know what else to do.