Thanks for the dummies guide!

Suited you, did it?

well,what if we come up with something unique, something that is only on our site, will they go to the bother of human intervention or updating their spambot software just for our site, if not why not use something like Michael suggested ..

It's a matter of coding it up Dave, and besides, we would probably just be taking leaves from other peoples books on setting up a 'unique' one. Added to that, you don't want to make the new user jump through hoops to register (that's why I thought the little modification I found would have suited - no extra catchpa's or questions).

Seanie.

well,what if we come up with something unique, something that is only on our site, will they go to the bother of human intervention or updating their spambot software just for our site, if not why not use something like Michael suggested ..

Well, there are a number of factors to bear in mind.

1) It takes a lot of time and effort to roll your own solution. Each time a security update to PHPBB would be released we would have to re-do our csutomistaions and they may need to be tweaked to keep them functional.

2) The less standard we are the more likely we are to confuse people. Our users are not generally computer nerds but regular joe-soaps often with very few computer skill. There's a lot to be said for keeping things simple and "normal"

3) How much of a problem are spam users at the moment? If you have hundreds a day and you waste ages on them then it makes sense to put a lot of effort into fixing them. If it really isn't a problem then what's the point?

Bearing all that in mind I'd suggest that we don't need to do any more than we already are. We have taken signifficant steps to minimise the problem and as it stands we can very easily cope with the few that do make it through.

Bart.