I’m known either as drathbun (on phpBB.com and some boards) or Dave Rathbun (on other boards). I started my first phpBB board in 2002 soon after the initial release of the 2.x line. I think I got my first spammer a few months later. I have been writing MODs and testing strategies to combat spam ever since.

I joined the moderator team at phpBB.com about two and a half years ago. During my time on the team I have seen spammer attacks on the board as well as major improvements that phpBB3 has provided. But I don’t think that phpBB3 and its new features will be enough. I have seen some very creative spammer techniques that a service like bbProtection can help prevent. As such, I am quite excited to have been invited to join the team here.

In real life I work as a database consultant and have been working in that area for over 18 years. I don’t do DBA work anymore, but I do enjoy applying my skills at design and optimization to phpBB MODs. I am still running the first board I started which now has over 32K users and 440K posts… running a highly modified version of phpBB2 at this point and still going strong. I blog about phpBB (and other things occasionally) at the phpBBDoctor blog, and I have a few other phpBB-related sites that you can probably find with a little help from google. In my spare time I wonder what I would do if I had any spare time.