spam ( 911- HELP )
 

I ran a popular forum that I started in 2005 with 0 members until sold in 2015 with 48000 plus members.

The first vbulletin versions worked great and spam was never an issue , I simply ask a question that most potential members would know and it worked well.

Now I know things always change, But lately I have been trying to start new forums with hopes of growing membership.

I am using vb 4 now before I used vb 3 worked great.

As soon as I installed vb 4 I get thousands of new spam members, it is almost like either vbulletion or the spam program I installed Spam-O-Matic sends notice to everyone in the world that a new forum is up with the url and all, When I did forums in the old days I rarely had a new spammer, now trying to get started I spend most of my time deleting spam. I would like knowledgeable answers NOT GUESSES. I appreciate and help. should I go back to VB 3 , I cannot beleive that all new and present forums have to deal with this much spam someone has to have found out a solution

What I do for my forums to help mitigate the spam are:

Have users verify email address to register
setup at least 2 or more questions for them to answer on the registration page
block new members from posting links & editing their profile (no home page in profile or editing their signature)
setup a user promotion to promote members to a less restricted basic group after 3-5 posts.
prevent users who haven't been promoted from showing up on the members list
and of course have cloudflare do a check on any member visiting the registration page

I've seen alot less getting through nowadays.