What are your best practices, tips, tricks regarding validation/approval of new members?
Ning To Jamroom
Here on jamroom.net we use email validation along with the 'Spam Blocker' module. Whenever a new user signs up and posts anything that contains a link outside the site all admins get notified.
When we check it if it looks like spam we go to:
* Dashboard -> whos online
locate the spammer and click LOG OFF, then BAN IP, then
* DASHBOARD -> USER BROWSER -> BLOCK
* DASHBOARD -> USER BROWSER -> DELETE (choose user account and profile)
That will delete their account and all posts they have made.
If the link is to somewhere I often paste that users credentials in that sites "contact us" box along with a message something like
Quote: You've hired a spammer to do your SEO for you. Fire them immediately. They're spamming your links around the internet, this will get your site added to spammer blacklists which will make it harder for you to appear in search engine rankings. Fire them immediately
To let the owners know. A lot of the time they've hired an "SEO expert" who's trying to use your site as link validation to improve their rankings.
There's no other reason they'd post stuff like
"Hey I love this article, (link to essay writing site)".