Atsa Lotta Spam Bots!

[Relee]

So I wonder what's with all the spam bots? Are they actually bots that have figured out a way to infiltrate the forum? Maybe they're actually wage slaves manually applying for forums and spamming them? Help! I'm trapped in a spam factory! XD

I read a while back that some spammers are co-operating with porn sites and giving away free porn images in exchange for solving capchas, as a devious method for bots to get human assistance.

In any event it seems the forums need a new method to keep the spammers out, fast!

[strange_person]

Perhaps we should institute an additional step in the application process, if possible. Along with "name," "password," "e-mail," &c, and a conventional captcha, add a paragraph-sized field labeled with some deep philosophical question ("What is best in life?") and only admit those who can string together a grammatically-coherent sentence or two.

[draque]

Some of them seem to actually be human beings. Tokyocomrad is an example... I dunno. It's annoying, but if they have humans doing the spamming, no CAPTCHA in the world will keep them out.

[Relee]

If it's humans doing it, they're probably given a list of URLs for forums and told 'post here' without any real thought put into it. If the URL for the forum is changed slightly, like ujforums.unicornjelly.com instead of just forums.unicornjelly.com/ it should look like the forums are gone, and they'll just skip over them instead of trying to find them again.

It might not work but it's an idea.

[Monthenor]

Perhaps we should institute an additional step in the application process, if possible. Along with "name," "password," "e-mail," &c, and a conventional captcha, add a paragraph-sized field labeled with some deep philosophical question ("What is best in life?") and only admit those who can string together a grammatically-coherent sentence or two.

"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentation of the women."

Penny Arcade forum has just such a thing, a freeform text box with the only direction being "convince us you're not a robot".

[Coda]

I've seen some forums that have extra forums at the top and the bottom that are "tarpits." Any account that posts in there is immediately banned. Humans, of course, know better than to post in them.