But that would mean invasion of privacy, I don’t think any user would agree to it.

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India Travel Forum | India Travel Directory | India Photo Gallery | Free Travel Directory

I use the promotion mechanism. This also lets me stop the spammers from emailing other forum members until they hit so many posts. I've got it set to 10 posts, which has been a good compromise.

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~ Jacqueline

Is there any instructions on using the promotion system in such a way?

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My Forums uVme Forum, Booze Britain, Close Protection Forum, Magazine Subscription

Go to your admin cp
Create a new usergroup. I use "Standard Users" Make it a copy of "Registered Users"
Edit "Registered Users"
Restrict any options you like. Here are some ideas:
Can upload attachments: No
Can post polls: No
Maximum stored messages: 0 (This prevents private messages)
Can view who's online: No
Can email members: No (This prevents them using a form to send spam email to members who chose to accept email from other forum members)
Can use signatures: No (As an alternative, allow signatures but turn off BB Code and IMG Code to prevent spam links to other sites)
Can use reputation: No

You may also want to make "Standard Users" somewhat restricted and have a "Premium Users" group that grants special avatar, profile, and user title privileges.

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~ Jacqueline

thanks very much, your help is much appreciated!

Is there a automated way to promote a persons usergroup, (e.g 10 posts etc)

Mally

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My Forums uVme Forum, Booze Britain, Close Protection Forum, Magazine Subscription

Sure! In your Admin CP, go to Usergroups / Promotions
Click on Add New Promotion
In this example, you'll leave the Usergroup at Registered Users, Change # of posts to 10, Change promotion strategy to Posts, Select "Standard Users" as the move to usergroup, then save your changes.

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~ Jacqueline

I totally agree with bob. Ive deleted over 1000 spammers and banned their ips. If it looks funny I check to see if its a bot and look at the who is database. If the ip is in amsterdam Your gone. I've only had one spam the pm system. Some weird crap about spiritualism. They got through two pages of memberslist before I deleted and permabanned. I suspect the PMers are human and not bots.
Even if you dont activate the account after a period i delete it.

is there a way to find out who they have sent pm's too?

also Alias's is there was to find out aliases when people use fake i.p's is there a way to find out who is doing it?

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http://www.ucsampdoria.co.uk

I check ips in the Who.is: Universal Whois Lookup database.
I found the spammer fairly quickly by checking the bounced back emails.

not if they're using a proxy or some kind of cloaker. You can complain to the providers abuse email.

My visitors are mostly the US so if i see some weird name - one from shanghai or never heard of country i look it up the username on google and give it look before I hit the delete. If they have activated an account its usually human. The spammers have been using software now that sells on the net for big $'s that defeats captcha images. So the bots can register.
VB recommends you make your capcha images stonger by clicking on more checks

maybe someone with more expertise can answer you better.

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All striped bass - all The Time