So...

Yeah that was my guess... a bug in the C9 code or in the code that gets rid of the spam, fails to put the thread's "age" back to what it was before the spam post i bet.

It's that darn "_" on your name....  it drew them like flies to your posts.

Duncan, I thought LiveID links to an email add?  but i guess they are also creating throwaway emails?

does LiveID verify the email?  -- been a while I created my stuff back when it was still called Passport

between junk / fake / throwaway emails and dynamic IP / spoofed IP it makes it hard to block only the "bad guys"

sucks....  wish I had some crazy great idea on how to deter them..... other than making our site require some kind of approval before first post.

what about that?

like a new user can not post untill approved.

require some email reply as one step

possibly let them post but hide the first 24 hours of posts "pending user verification"

possibly just a way to slow them down?

so that if they sign up and post junk no one sees it on the pages, someone can see what they post and allow/ban then.

granted this makes for a hassle for the staff to check on new users but it might scare off the spam-posters

or at least make them have to wait to get any results.... that hold might send them elsewhere.

Charles, Blizzard has that on the forums for WOW, that might help. possibly make the "X" factor have a default and then add a member override that you and others can adjust if a given account is very active.

that way you can have a global default and a way to adjust for know active posters.

that might also be a good idea, kind of like what i was thinking but could be done automatic - less overhead for the MSFT guys.