I take it you are not allowed to pre-ban?
Another anti-spam measure that I think might slow down the spam is adding a spot where you have to input your IGN. Only mods can see it. If it is “vghfjtjh”, then you know it is a bot.
Or change the spam question to something like: What color is IronMan’s first power?
Small note, I think locked is a “she” if this post is anything to go on…
https://forums.505go.com/discussion/2187
She’s still a great spam fighter, whatever her other qualities, & gives great advice to newbies
locked identifies as “banana” on some days, you cisgender snob.
How about fighting in the other direction? Mods make all legit threads with recent posts sticky. So spam just never makes it where we see. 
The mods might be able to handle the spam if they were not having to continually address threads that go against forum rules…like calling out cheaters by name, alliance, etc.
Still LMFAO…“also: money”.
The first night I ready that. I kept busting out laughing. My wife woke up twice looking at me like I was crazy.
I know it was wrong to do, but it rivals the football scene in Wedding Crashers and the shark scene in Couple Retreat (I’d say the traffic scene in Bowfinger, but who would remember that any way) for its gut busting potency.
BTW, have you started rebuilding your roster yet? I know it’s tough to find another bagman in those tokens.
Bumping this, other solutions outlined herein.
Long time lurker… fairly new “participant”… but I do have a decent amount of availability to Mod and/or delete spam if needed.
Cheers!
Over in Members with zero posts will be removed I give a list of almost 2000 moles, and mention my temporary vacation from playing whack-a-mole with the spammers. If the bot-created members are removed, the spam problem will stop.
I am reminded of alpha centauri.
If you get too far ahead of your opponents the game starts spawning fungus everywhere and starts bombarding all your cities with endless waves of enemies. Clearing the fungus helped but. Some games you could fight them back and they would eventually leave you alone, sometimes they completely wreck everything.
No there is no point to this, just being nostalgic, and comparing spammers to alien fungus.
d3p is a universe that spawns endless fungus
I like this analogy
Dammit … I tried out my idea, and the spam stopped instantly.
But … I picked a lousy time to make a stand about going on vacation.
So … people that would like to be moderators – here are some tasks you can tackle:
- Build a spreadsheet for memberlist.php?sk=d&sd=a to memberlist.php?sk=d&sd=a&start=3175
- Remove members with -50 reputation (already banned)
- Remove members from https://forums.505go.com/discussion/11783 (already banned)
- Remove members that joined awhile ago, have recent activity, and who have reputation 0 (lurkers)
- Remove members that look like legit user names.
Crunch that down into a list of names for the next mass ban and post it.
If you are still looking for volunteers I’d have some time each day. Also because of my schedule & time zone I tend to be around at offpeak times.
Bumpity bump bump.
The spam problem is largely fixed with my mega-ban.
Moderators Riggy and Puritas are back in action, now that they can remove all spam from the boards easily when they see it, an occasional occurrence.
A couple of days ago, the spam was a constant thing, beyond any rational person’s ability to handle.