Such a thing as spam-immune forums?

I don't know the answer myself, but I remembered seeing this thread yesterday that may possibly help you:

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ed-advice.html

Yes, it is pretty easy. I have several spam immune forums. You simply need to reprogram (usually php) part of the script, so the bot can't use generic scripts. Takes about 10 minutes, then your forum is immune to spam. Or make your own custom captcha. Works wonders

Hi Andy,

That's a very, very common problem almost every forum has to go through.

When I was experiencing this issue last year with one of my forums which was
being especially hard-hit,

I found a 'mod' which could be added from inside your admin settings in your forum
called anti-spam verification.

There is also a setting you can set from within your admin to require 'user activation'
which sends an email to the inbox of the new user requiring a live human
to open the email and click on the activation link before allowing any forum activity,

This was with simple machine forums, but there are similar mods for the other apps of your choice too.

After I added that mod and then 'ticked the box' for requiring user activation on sign up,

I didn't have a problem with the bots ever again.

Every now and then, there is the human who will insist upon sharing their post
with links, but at least it's not automated and usually confined to the time frame
where it can be nuked by moderators and/or admins on sight.

I know with the smf, it's called anti-spam verification.

You can download it for free and just 'browse packages' from within your admin settings then click on it to upload from your harddrive, install from within your admin panel and you're good to go.

Thanks for that.

I've setup forums in the past and the bots found them before I even launched them and I saw Martin Avis had a similar issue recently so I want to avoid this in the future.

I'll check out the recommendations so far.

Cheers

Andy