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How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing. Update #2: has not proved to be particularly effective for the most common/annoying forms of spam; "live streaming" spammers are perfectly able and willing to register accounts, and often make use of this to hit multiple sites simultaneously.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do. Update: so far, this has proved to be a useful tool for slowing down spam.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam. Ineffective for human-driven "live streaming" spammers who quickly munge keywords and change URLs.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Enabling quality bans for questions. Upside is that it's very quick to kick in for spam; downside is it doesn't really work if mods destroy spam accounts, which is normally the most expedient way to deal with them.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags. Update: a design for this is being actively worked on right now - gonna take some work to implement, but stands the best chance of success out of any of these.

How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing. Update #2: has not proved to be particularly effective for the most common/annoying forms of spam; "live streaming" spammers are perfectly able and willing to register accounts, and often make use of this to hit multiple sites simultaneously.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do. Update: so far, this has proved to be a useful tool for slowing down spam.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam. Ineffective for human-driven "live streaming" spammers who quickly munge keywords and change URLs.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Enabling quality bans for questions. Upside is that it's very quick to kick in for spam; downside is it doesn't really work if mods destroy spam accounts, which is normally the most expedient way to deal with them.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags. Update: a design for this is being actively worked on right now - gonna take some work to implement, but stands the best chance of success out of any of these.

How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing. Update #2: has not proved to be particularly effective for the most common/annoying forms of spam; "live streaming" spammers are perfectly able and willing to register accounts, and often make use of this to hit multiple sites simultaneously.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do. Update: so far, this has proved to be a useful tool for slowing down spam.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam. Ineffective for human-driven "live streaming" spammers who quickly munge keywords and change URLs.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Enabling quality bans for questions. Upside is that it's very quick to kick in for spam; downside is it doesn't really work if mods destroy spam accounts, which is normally the most expedient way to deal with them.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags. Update: a design for this is being actively worked on right now - gonna take some work to implement, but stands the best chance of success out of any of these.

How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing. Update #2: has not proved to be particularly effective for the most common/annoying forms of spam; "live streaming" spammers are perfectly able and willing to register accounts, and often make use of this to hit multiple sites simultaneously.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do. Update: so far, this has proved to be a useful tool for slowing down spam.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam. Ineffective for human-driven "live streaming" spammers who quickly munge keywords and change URLs.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Enabling quality bans for questions. Upside is that it's very quick to kick in for spam; downside is it doesn't really work if mods destroy spam accounts, which is normally the most expedient way to deal with them.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags. Update: a design for this is being actively worked on right now - gonna take some work to implement, but stands the best chance of success out of any of these.

How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags.

How can we make it harder to spam the site without making it too much harder for new users to ask questions?

Well... You can't, not easily. At least not for the case of getting a single spam post through: whatever hoops you ask a new user to jump through, a spammer can leap as well. That said...

Things we can do easily right now:

• We can turn on required registration (this is enabled on SO and Programmers) - this will tend to slow spammers down a bit; of course, it's also another hurdle for new users. That said, I think it's warranted at this point on AU. Update: tried this briefly on Bicycles earlier today when they were being dumped on - the spam stopped immediately. Will continue testing. Update #2: has not proved to be particularly effective for the most common/annoying forms of spam; "live streaming" spammers are perfectly able and willing to register accounts, and often make use of this to hit multiple sites simultaneously.

• We can block posts with links from new users, as Bill suggests. This may or may not help, but I'm willing to test it. That said, there's a good chance of collateral damage when you prevent new users from referencing, say, official documentation. On some sites this could be more of a problem than on others.

• We can increase the rate-limits for new users (minutes between questions, questions per day, etc.) This only really matters if spammers aren't IP-hopping, which they do tend to do. Update: so far, this has proved to be a useful tool for slowing down spam.

Things we can do now, with a bit more overhead:

• URL / phrase blacklisting: right now, this is a dev-only tool, and it's a bit dangerous. Also fairly trivial to work around, though it's been somewhat effective in slowing down PPV spam. Ineffective for human-driven "live streaming" spammers who quickly munge keywords and change URLs.

• IP banning: huge potential for collateral damage, applies network-wide. Effective when spammers aren't IP-hopping.

• Enabling quality bans for questions. Upside is that it's very quick to kick in for spam; downside is it doesn't really work if mods destroy spam accounts, which is normally the most expedient way to deal with them.

• Just keep deleting the posts until they give up and move on (this has actually been reasonably effective in most cases).

Things we can't do, but are discussing:

• Faster, safer, more flexible term/URL blacklisting.

• Automatic IP-blocks in response to spam flags. Update: a design for this is being actively worked on right now - gonna take some work to implement, but stands the best chance of success out of any of these.