I use stopforumspam, and have a little script to deal with spam, that queries a read-only copy of the main DB. Anyway, users report it before I realize someone

I use stopforumspam, and have a little script to deal with spam, that queries a read-only copy of the main DB. Anyway, users report it before I realize someone spammed the forum. Also, if your userbase is not too specialized using a white list of email domains can help. That makes some powerusers angry, so YMMV. I think that what happened is that Internet got totally democratized, so there's a lot of noise, and valuable people is lost in that noise. Lost in the sense of we have a hard time finding them, and they have a hard time finding us. I can't compete with the ad budget of all the social media trying to capture eyeballs. And then you receive a lot of people who back in those times probably was thinking that forums are for nerds, and there you have it, your average idiot who demands to have an equal voice, but refuses to make any effort to contribute. It may sound like an elitist POV but honestly, this is how it is for me. I praise HN so much just because people here at least makes some effort.