# How to properly identify a spammer?

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-properly-identify-a-spammer/228103>\
**Category:** Community Building\
**Created:** [May 25, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-properly-identify-a-spammer/228103 "2022-05-25T18:30:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 4

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**Author:** ![Canapin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/canapin/32/119591_2.png) [@Canapin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Canapin)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2022, 7:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-to-properly-identify-a-spammer/228103/4 "2022-05-25T19:32:14Z")

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> [@merefield](#):
>
> I’m not sure how you’d automate catching that.

> [@itsbhanusharma](#):
>
> When we were getting hammered with spam, we took the nuclear option to require approval for all new posts.

We have maybe around 10 spammers a day, maybe a little more (we’re three people moderating and I know they also delete several accounts a day).

Discourse, Akismet, and user reports work like a charm, we need neither automation nor nuclear option. 😄

Suspected spammers don’t take much work and are fairly rare, but I wonder if there are techniques or third-party services that can help identify manually a suspected account.

* * *

Though I add that this is not a real issue to fix on our forum, I’m just wondering.

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