Spam...

It was spammed. A lot of user accounts were created and used to send spam messages. The spam messages have been deleted and the accounts have been disabled. In addition the spam filter has been enhanced so that it should catch more spam before it actually makes it to the forum.

We were hit with another wave of spam last night. This time there were over 7500 individual spam messages, which I believe have now all been cleaned up. Unfortunately the improved filter did not catch the messages, but it has since been re-worked again and hopefully this time will prevent most new spam messages.

An update: the spam filter is now catching most of the spam, but the spammers are very persistent. I am still gradually improving the spam filter to catch the remaining spam.

A captcha doesn't stop someone posting a spam message. Captchas are good for preventing messages generated by bots. I do not believe the spam we are seeing is posted by bots - it is being posted by real live humans. In any case you need to sign up for an account before you post, and signing up requires solving a captcha, so clearly a captcha is not enough to prevent spam.

There was more spam, and there will probably be more spam in the future. As the first post said: we are aware of it, we are working on dealing with it (and you'll notice that all the spam is now gone). Please have patience. There is no need to comment if more spam appears. Thanks.