Spam Bots

[MeiTow]

Alright, I 've had enough. The amount of spam bots seem to be getting worse and worse every night! Can we get some more protection against them? A captcha upon registering, maybe? Maybe set up the forums so you have to set permissions for people to see or post in certain parts of them? I mean, for the most part, it's pretty easy to tell what names are spambots and which aren't. Or you could have basically a section of the forums that is open to anyone and everyone with a "hello" thread or something that is required to be written in before being able to post in the rest of the areas. After registering you are directed to the hello thread and there can be a secret code in there somewhere that needs to be in the response for permissions or something.

[Kareesh]

One thing the admins did on another forum I'm a part of is to have you answer a question when you register for the board. The question is easy to answer if you can read the website. For instance, a question here could be "What is the name of the site?" or "Who is the creator of the blog?". Something that wouldn't be too difficult to answer if you just took a glance at the board. Not sure if that would work on this board, though.

[blackmageheart]

Alright, I 've had enough.

You aren't the only one! The amount of spam lately has been insane. Of course, we get to it when we can but as soon as we turn our backs there's more.

There were some new things added to the sign up process to make it harder but it's not hard enough - however I do think these aren't bots but in fact people signing up to spam. The thing now will be to prevent them signing up (or at least, less of them) and I have a few more ideas to give to johloh.

One thing the admins did on another forum I'm a part of is to have you answer a question when you register for the board.

I think we have that now, it's something like "who is the main character of Super Mario Bros". And also email activation. But it's obviously not enough and so more measures will have to be added.


Please accept my apologies on behalf of the rest of the mod team, I know spam isn't nice and it makes people not enjoy the forums as much. But we will do something about it!

[MeiTow]

It's not really your guys' fault BMH. Seems to start right around supper time for me so you are probably in bed or heading that direction by the time it starts. LOL! I think my hello thread idea is a good one. I've seen other boards use it to great effect. It will make it so people can't automatically post as soon as they sign up and that may turn some people off but I think it will work out better in the long run. This way even if it is people signing up to spam they still have to have moderator approval before they can post anywhere but one thread.

[johloh]

Cross your fingers I think we got it now...we'll see. This something we take very seriously and will fix. I apologize for allvthe annoyance.