The bot situation

[draque]

The bot situation here is starting to get absurd. How difficult would it be to get something implemented like a bot-warning that all users could apply to any other user? If a particular user was warned by enough other users, they might be given a temp ban pending mod review or something. Just a thought.

[Coda]

I still like the tarpit idea. >.>

[InterNutter]

The simplest way to keep 'bots out of a forum is a 'prove you're human' box in the admin process.

Yes, it means you have to review every single person attempting to sign in, but it also means a bot-free life. I have one for my forum, and 90% of the time, spambots just stick their name in there. If only I could come up with a nifty dingus to seek/destroy all the potential members who put their name in that box... Sigh.

...which reminds me, I have a holding pattern of bots to incinerate.

[Coda]

I'd be happy to volunteer to review registrations, if it would help.

[Jennifer Diane Reitz]

The simplest way to keep 'bots out of a forum is a 'prove you're human' box in the admin process.

Yes, it means you have to review every single person attempting to sign in, but it also means a bot-free life. I have one for my forum, and 90% of the time, spambots just stick their name in there. If only I could come up with a nifty dingus to seek/destroy all the potential members who put their name in that box... Sigh.

...which reminds me, I have a holding pattern of bots to incinerate.

Do you use PHPbbs? Is there some tool or thing I should be using here that you could recommend?

Currently, as you know, we use the Capcha or Captua, or whatever it is called, thing, which apparently the bots and spammers can get through.

There doesn't seem any way to do better, which bugs me greatly.

What I would like to do, if I could, would be to throw up a picture of a basic Unicorn Jelly or Pastel character, and ask that an applicant state the name of the character. I think that would -thanks to how obscure my work is- eliminate virtually ALL spammers. Who could answer unless they had read the work? Nobody.

But there doesn't seem any means to implement this. Any ideas? Any modules for PHPbbs3 that I may have missed?

[InterNutter]

I use IPB, which has less inherent bugs and more assumption that the person running it is a programmer :6

On the upside, it lets me edit the sign-up sheet and tailor-create administration forms. I simply tacked a "Reason for joining" textbox onto the bottom of the default sign-up process and made it mandatory.

I'll have to ask hubbie-dear about finding/creating the necessary dingus previously discussed. And recommends for yours.

[draque]

Currently, as you know, we use the Capcha or Captua, or whatever it is called, thing, which apparently the bots and spammers can get through.

It's ironic that so many of us are interested in AI and the like, yet we're all so willing to grumble that computer programs are getting better and any given simple Turing test. ^^()

[Idiot Glee]

Currently, as you know, we use the Capcha or Captua, or whatever it is called, thing, which apparently the bots and spammers can get through.

It's ironic that so many of us are interested in AI and the like, yet we're all so willing to grumble that computer programs are getting better and any given simple Turing test. ^^()

Alot of them are probably real people, but paid very little in a Chinese sweat shop to do this.

[Kosmonauta]

It's ironic that so many of us are interested in AI and the like, yet we're all so willing to grumble that computer programs are getting better and any given simple Turing test. ^^()

Alot of them are probably real people, but paid very little in a Chinese sweat shop to do this.

Why pay people to do this? X_x What gain is there, monetarily? I mean, barely anyone clicks those links, even less people would actually buy anything in the links. Maybe i don't understand business in this new age, but it sounds so absurd, paying someone to do this X_x
I rather believe in better A.I.
I don't remember who, but someone wrote that the most likely first intelligent artificial life form will probably be a spam bot or a virus of some kind. They are the ones that are most adaptive to change and you all know what old Darwin used to say.

[Idiot Glee]

Well, I guess it has something to do with getting higher hits on search engines.

Or, there is someone out their who clicks. If you pay a man one dollar a day and he brings in two for that work he's making a profit.

[Coda]

Yeah, it's all a matter of search engine optimization. They're trying to get Google to associate their sites with this site, so they can mooch off of the popularity of this site.

[strange_person]

Why a sweatshop? Why pay in money? There are many people out there who would gladly crack CAPTCHA in exchange for porn, which is recyclable.

[Kosmonauta]

Ugh, my mind opening to a whole new world of possibilities I so happily ignored before

[Wizard CaT]

It's more productive to use those Chinese to farm gold you know.

[Alfador]

It's more productive to use those Chinese to farm gold you know.

Apparently so, given that the latest one was advertising the sale of gold!!

[Alfador]

This is odd... There was a user, fofshaina, who posted only what seemed to be an advertisement for over-50 singles... in German. Tychomonger and Idiot Glee, according to the administrative control panel, had already each deleted this user once. So since that didn't seem to work, I instead deactivated the account and deleted the sole post it had made. Does deactivating the account, in fact, prevent the username from being re-created or used again? Should we start also banning IP addresses?

P.S. The profile gives Location as The Bahamas, the website has a two-letter suffix for Switzerland, and the WHOIS result for the IP says they're from Austria.

[Monocheres]

What I've done with bots is ban them by all three methods and then delete both the user and its posts. Really gives 'em the goomph.

I used to post a note about each one, but it's getting so ridiculous lately, I just haven't bothered with the last couple. I mean, life is too damn short already.

[strange_person]

Here's an idea: everyone is required to introduce themselves. Anyone whose first post is outside the Introductions forum, or whose introductory post goes 24 hours without a reply, gets locked out automatically until someone manually lets them back in.

[Coda]

Not so sure I like that idea. It would have banned me. Besides, bots can post in Introductions anyway.

[strange_person]

Well, if it's announced as part of the sign-up process, it would be like a tarpit.