dealing with spammers

Yes, spam bots are not such a big problem but I too see the human spammers all the time. I participate on a number of very active forums and the way we deal with them is to delete the posts right away. IOW, there needs to be an active administrator on the forum. It seems to be the consensus that there isn't a better solution. Too bad.

I hate spam, but also like to look at the positive side of things. Of course one can see spam anywhere, but when I encounter a new forum and there is very much of it, or it stays up for a couple of days, then to me it indicates a lack of interest on the part of the owners. So, to me, spam can also act as a useful indicator.

I'm really no expert, and I've not tried this, but it says there is e-mail verification. Look at: FORUM » Administration » Settings » Registration
The second box down says "Require verification of all new registrations by e-mail." I guess that would do the trick.

You could also limit the permissions of new users in FORUM » Administration » Users » Groups and then upgrade all the new ones by hand. The pun_colored_usergroups extension could show the new ones as red (for example) so they stand out. There's probably other things you can do when you look around.

That's amazing! I can't believe that a spammer would go to all the trouble of coming back to a site. Some of those guys must not be looking for a lot of return on their time. Anyway, my second suggestion may be a bit more useful then, but if someone is really persistent then I guess nothing will work other than just keep deleting their posts. Hopefully someone here has a better suggestion and can be more helpful than me.