form spam prevention

[stubarny]

Hi,

 

I'm looking to set up a jobsboard on my website and have bought a script to handle the applications through a form. The script prevent the form being hijacked for bulk email but there's nothing to stop robots making repetitive spam postings unless I insert a captcha code which will obviously slow down users.

 

So the question is if i don't use a captcha code do you think there's much of a risk of having spam through these forms? I've noticed kijiji.com requires captchas on its advert reply form but totaljobs.com (a large jobsboard in the UK) doesn't use captchas - how do they prevent spam problems or do you think they accept a small amount of spam will happen and think its not worth inconviniencing users with captchas to prevent the spam?

 

Thanks for your views.

 

Regards,

 

Stewart

[brad]

Do you think they use email validation? I think spam bots are just built to spam forums etc, they look for URLS of forums and typical forum/guestbook/comments board type field names. I still think a simple image verification script would be useful..

[per1os]

It all depends on the content. I use captcha with spam filtering. IE: anytime someone posts more than 2 urls in a comment, chances are it is spam. That and a list of drugs that are commonly used.

 

What you may also want to do if you do not use captcha is put a time limit of postings, IE a person can only post 2 times within a minute or else their ip is blocked temporarily.

 

However you choose fighting spam sucks.

 

--FrosT