No, I don't need any Propecia, Cialis, or knockoff Coach handbags, thank you very much. And my online community members don't either.

Today's post offers some options in your fight against spammers. They're a different breed from trolls, who live for attention and debate. Most spammers come and go like ghostly garbage trucks.

You wake up in the morning to find that your awesome forum thread about skiing has been hijacked.

You suddenly get an influx of new community members with screen names that are just a jumble of consonants.

Time to get out the "Spammer-B-Gone."

Crowdstack Tools For Attacking Spam Content

For the link spammers - Set up an automation rule that screens links. This gives you the chance to ban and delete the spammy content directly from the moderation queue, while still allowing your own community members to post relevant links. You can use this same tool to screen for common spam words (like Gucci or those little blue pills).

Keeping it G-rated - Set up a censor list. Go to Settings > Content > Censor List. You can decide how strict you want to be, and the censor applies to display names, tags, content, and media titles. Enlist a friend with a trashy mouth to come up with your profanity list.

For the jumble members - If you start to get the nonsense accounts, you can temporarily (or permanently) pre-screen all new registrations. Go to Registration Settings and check "moderate (manually approve) all new member registrations." It's a pretty safe bet that "xfyuidy" is not going to be a productive member of your community.

Comment spam - We also offer a complete comment spam option via Akismet integration, as an add-on available for all customers (buy it through your control panel). This is another powerful avenue for fighting the spammers.