Stop new account on forum. Seriously?

I absolutely agree.

I disagree. People should be free to join and ask questions IMO.

I've been actively using the internet for 20 years and before that CompuServe and numerous BBS'es. I used Usenet for a long time and if you think the spam here is bad it is nothing compared to some of the groups there in the past.

IMO the best solution to web based forums, such as this one, is to allow anyone to join but have their first post moderated--that is held until approved by a mod. If it's spam the user and their held post are deleted without affecting the board in any way. If the first post is a valid one it is approved by the mod and the system allows future posts without further moderation.

Of course that assumes the board software allows that functionality. I've no idea if this ones does.

If they stop the ability to sign up, then how would they know that they've fixed the issue? And although this spam is very annoying, I too have seen worse at other forums for even longer periods of time.

Sure, I'm not saying that they need to disable it permanently or even long term. It only takes a few minutes to disable new account creation or to require posts from new users be moderated. Any changes made could be reverted once the admins have a chance to enable some long term solution to the problem.

This would keep the forums usable for existing subscribers, and it would allow people who are experiencing trouble to at least browse for the information they want to find.

Sure, I'm not saying that they need to disable it permanently or even long term. It only takes a few minutes to disable new account creation or to require posts from new users be moderated. Any changes made could be reverted once the admins have a chance to enable some long term solution to the problem.

This would keep the forums usable for existing subscribers, and it would allow people who are experiencing trouble to at least browse for the information they want to find.

Travis, I actually raised this point with the admins over a year ago, shortly after the kitchen spammers started becoming a nuisance. That spam seems tame compared with this new breed of tasteless, vulgar, and relentless spam. Personally, I would much rather be moderating hundreds of new user posts, than dealing with deleting and banning hundreds of accounts every day (which I am doing now). There are 3 or 4 mods that spend a good bit of time cleaning up this forum. If not for their tireless and thankless work this forum would be virtually unusable.

There are 3 or 4 mods that spend a good bit of time cleaning up this forum. If not for their tireless and thankless work this forum would be virtually unusable.

It sounds like you mods are stuck between a rock and a hard place since you can't change the forum configuration. I'm sure it is frustrating that you guys are stuck cleaning up the fallout. Hopefully the admins will consider some changes given the amount of spam traffic that has been coming through recently.

I've been a moderator before (obviously not here on these forums). I can fully agree, it is definitely thankless work. That said, I'd like to thank you and the other mods for what you do every day on these forums.

Spam is a never ending battle. I can help out deleting obvious spam if I just could.

An alternative solution mentioned here is that you have to describe your problems when you sign up. Unfortunatelly bot gets better and better.

Limit the amount of new topics in total? Possible? Cause it's not that huge that 20-50 new valid threads been created at the same time.

Ive logged a call with Garmin as this is getting ridiculous. Until they add in extra spam detection you will be on a losing battle. Garmin really need to get their house in order. I'm on many other forums and none are as bad as here with spams being posted every minute!

A solution on some forums is that the member needs to post 10 messages in the "introduce myself" section before they can post in other threads. This way the spam is limited, and only to a specific thread.

You don't need to put posts in a moderation queue. That just increases workload. Making life harder for genuine registered users isn't the way either. Just sort out the software! (same with all Garmin software).

Few other forums these days have a major spam problem. The odd few slip through but most can deal with it.

Looks like you've got a problem with robots registering automatically, so sort that bit out. Only needs some checks for a real human and only allow an account to be valid after email verification, check domain on email isn't in a spam list etc. These are all features standard these days on popular forum software.

I would say the whole registration process is very wrong anyway. In no way should it be automatically creating accounts where the username is the person's email! Which could be private. It will get spammed massively by being publicly shown on a forum. I create addresses specific for each forum in case of spam, but if it gets hit hard then I have to create another one. Worse if you pick authentication via Google, FB etc, it uses your email address for that, which I didn't realise. I never like to expose my Google email on public forums. I had to send a request to get the username changed, but I shouldn't have to do that.

I came in here to find out why Garmin Connect doesn't work on Chrome any more. Utterly broken. Another shoddy bit of Garmin software. But all I see are hundreds of spam.

You don't need to put posts in a moderation queue. That just increases workload. Making life harder for genuine registered users isn't the way either. Just sort out the software! (same with all Garmin software).

Not every post needs to be moderated. Only the first few posts from a new user need to be moderated. Once those first posts have been accepted, then the user would be free to post without moderation. This actually makes life easier on a moderator when there are fewer legitimate new users posting than spammers. Instead of getting notifications of spam and having to follow up (which takes several clicks), they can go to the moderation queue and select all of the spam, and click the delete button (at most two clicks per spam, but no less than 1). This doesn't affect new users much except that they have to wait for their first few posts to be approved. Once that has happened, they aren't moderated so their posts go through immediately.

I don't understand what your definition of sorting out the software is, but for most this would be included.