OTOY Forums

First time I have been here in months I gave up from the spam and other reasons.

Unfortunately we don't have a really good way to keep bots out and let people in. we made the captcha more complicated but it seemed that some people had problems solving the captcha, so we had to change it back. I would like to try using questions, but we really haven't found many questions that are easy to answer by people but hard to solve by bots...

Cheers,
Marcus

what about those special questions only answerable by humans, like what color something has. I've seen these used a lot, and I find it unlikely a bot can crack that.

Proupin wrote:what about those special questions only answerable by humans, like what color something has. I've seen these used a lot, and I find it unlikely a bot can crack that.

"what color has love"

... seems like the fight against spam bots is already getting a bit turing-ish. i'd bet the first "real" ai won't be anything scientific nor the "search engine" (like in some sf novels) but a dirty spam bot

but it has to be a turing test! ok, so what about laying out a series of pictures of random objects, and the form asks particular objects to be clicked. As wiki states: "A recent example of image recognition CAPTCHA is to present the website visitor with a grid of random pictures and instruct the visitor to click on specific pictures to verify that they are not a bot (such as 'Click on the pictures of the airplane, the boat and the clock')."

Spam is ruining this forum! Do something about it!

Another long term solution could be to approve the first post of a new registered (non licence) customer.

Maybe ask for a donation from a credit card when you register as a user. I am sure that the spammers will think twice if they have to spend a $1 to join. The money can be returned or simply donated to RS.

steveps3 wrote:The money can be returned or simply donated to RS.

Good idea!
If spammer - do NOT return.
All others - just return after first non-spam post...

But one problem... AFAIK it is some fee for money return (that is billed by the billing company). So, it can be troubles in implementation of this...
And another problem - it will be just cost of advertising increased by the spammers... And it is no problem for most clients, advertising cost money, it is normal...))

Make the newly joined user read The Brothers Karamazov by Dostojevski and then write a short 20-page essay on it.

Come on, how do other forums deal with spammers without so much (or any) hassle? Better software?

combination of everything. . .

i wrote to octane team to implement ban hammer for first (with one click moderator ban spammer and erase all his posts)
second is to make some logical question in registration eg "is fire hot or cold"

then to change order of registration form cos most of spam bots know phpp registration default forms
...
point is to make something different but logical cos spam bots are stupid at the end

Then i read somewhere that you can create some kind of image of forum and you mark spammer and new post is posted there on its image...there you can pic up ip and block it...

if they pass then :

Then moderators will ban Ip

and ofc we will use ban hammer to clean and sweap them fast and easy...

i catch them even when they join our forum...i just click on new user and if user have link in signature that is shortcut to some www that we dont need to know....booom and hes gone before posting anything...
there are spam bots which only carrie link in signature and not posting anywhere


its a fight and we will win for sure