Spam threads gone wild...

This doesn't fix the problem, but perhaps minimizes it.  Try changing your view.  

https://forum.audiogon.com/discussions/recent?time_range=12

I see all the SPAM posts listed at the top of the page.  Anything with 0 replies is under "New Discussions in the past 12 hours"

Any posts with replies are under "Forum contributions in the past 12 hours".  If you don't reply to the SPAM posts they won't end up there.  

Just scroll past all the SPAM and into the real discussions.

I just report every one I see as spam, the Agon team usually deal with them pretty swiftly.

It's a free site after all.......

Yes, it is a free site and we very much appreciate that. I think the issue folks may have is that freeloading scum are violating trust and exploiting it for their gain and we want to see them shut down and not merely tolerated.

Heres the thing, as someone with some experience in the backend admin of forums, it is exceptionally easy to do as many have suggested and it has been easily doable for years (decades in fact....).  The admin sets a "whitelist" which you get on after a set number of posts....say 5.  Before that, all posts go into quarantine waiting mod approval.  Given that most spam has a bunch of odd characters like brackets, parentheses, words (i.e. male enhancement pills, etc), it takes a very short time i.e. minutes to quickly approve/deny the post as one can simply scroll through and visually delete the offender.  It is simply script of a dozen or so lines of code. 

The frustration at the mods here I would suggest is fully justified since this is such an easy fix that they are unable (i.e. lack basic technical ability) or unwilling to correct.  I for one cant understand this since the backend folks here undeniably have the technical chops to run this website, so I'm baffled as everyone else. 

So yes, keep the pressure on....

It's cheesy that Agon moderators routinely delete controversial posts by audiophiles, but fail to filter spam detritus at ingress.  This has mostly ruined the site during nighttime hours.