Spambots

[Tombstoner]

It's shocking how many of these we've been getting. It's almost always been be that bans them, so I just wanted to point it out to the rest of the forum. If there is any trend in them that can be made use of to help prevent them from registering, I would highly recommend that we use that and at least try and stop this.

[Mutou Yami]

I know how that feel, as I've had endless spambot sign-up at my forums and was forced to disable registrations. What if the system used like a math question as proof if that person is human, but if they bypass it (whatever question anyone can come up with) when we'll know it's a bot.

[Torchickens]

It's shocking how many of these we've been getting. It's almost always been be that bans them, so I just wanted to point it out to the rest of the forum. If there is any trend in them that can be made use of to help prevent them from registering, I would highly recommend that we use that and at least try and stop this.

I haven't seen any more alleged spam bots post since March, when a few users would continuously post content which would either advertise something else, or spread some kind of rumor.

Looking at our newest users, a lot simply have signatures which advertise some kind of website related to business or politics. We can't prove that they are spam bots simply by looking at their user profile but I agree that we might need some kind of verification question.

[Mutou Yami]

Most forum systems can add a security question, where I don't think mine can. I've had a bot post at one of my dead forums, and he/she/it had a link to something pointless, so I think we need a security question to prevent bots.

[Papa Doc]

Maybe we can have a captchca, and two easy questions to answer like "what is the name of this planet?" or "in what direction does the sun rise". Fairly simple as I see it.

[Wa]

A captcha is a good idea, but there are also a bunch of bots lying around registered in the userlist. Normally they're very easy to identify; they have some generic username like JennaSmith or anna2947 and have a link to a site in their signature or another part of the profile. More recent ones have more profile information; older ones have less. Some examples:
http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?action=profile;u=1062
http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?action=profile;u=1060
http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?action=profile;u=1104
http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php?action=profile;u=1009 <-- one of the newer kinds

Perhaps we could clean them up? Technically there's nothing wrong with them, but combating spam is a good cause.

[GARY 'M 9]

Well, I've just created 5 MANDATORY questions on BASIC knowledge of Gen I/II glitches.  Every question can be answered by a quick referral to the wiki or knowledge of the game.   This should drastically stop spambots.

[Papa Doc]

Good job!

[Tombstoner]

Well, I've just created 5 MANDATORY questions on BASIC knowledge of Gen I/II glitches.  Every question can be answered by a quick referral to the wiki or knowledge of the game.   This should drastically stop spambots.

Excellent idea! I don't think I would have thought of that.

[Mutou Yami]

Good work Gary, hopefully that'll keep the bots away.

[SCf3]

Yeah that will definitely reduce or even get rid of the spambots here. Good plan.

[xparasite9]

but...but spambots are hilarious...