Community Building and User Generated Content Forum

One argument for leaving the account there (but removing all privileges) is that you have a record of the spammer, and, assuming that email addresses must be unique, you force him to register with a different one.

Some forums offer creative ways to deal with spammers, like making their posts invisible to everyone but themselves or simulating server problems for a flagged user. Both of these enable you to waste the spammer's time vs. outright banning or deletion, which is immediately apparent to the spammer.

My problem is, I run a community forum, and many of the members are local business owners. My fear is that if I didn't allow them to add their website link, it would turn them off.

Etiquettely speaking, is it wrong to edit the spammy links from their profile myself?

I am leaning toward just deleting their account.

I'm new to this forum admin thing. Something feels strange about having these bogus member accounts clogging up my community.

I wonder how those of you who run huge communities feel about this, is it something you are always policing, or do you just learn to live with it?

I read the WebmasterWorld T.O.S., but see no mention of rules regarding the types of sites we can link to in our profile. Is there a rule here about this?