Peanut Gallery Commentary on the Staff Log of Bannings and such like.

[Jackalope]

Obviously. Today was definetely shitfest day. I didn't know that bots are already able to read out captcha.

Historically, bots farm those tasks out to humans who are tasked with solving CAPTCHAs. Low-cost labor, yay!

We are considering options. The issue here is that making it more difficult for spambots to post is also necessarily going to impact new users.

I am of the mind that we don't want to do that unless and until spammers have made it necessary to do so. I think that we have passed that point. However, this site belongs to Tiberius, and I am not going to make a change of that nature without his approval. To that end, I've asked him to weigh in on the issue.

[Alex K]

Obviously. Today was definetely shitfest day. I didn't know that bots are already able to read out captcha.

Historically, bots farm those tasks out to humans who are tasked with solving CAPTCHAs.  Low-cost labor, yay!

We are considering options.  The issue here is that making it more difficult for spambots to post is also necessarily going to impact new users.  

I am of the mind that we don't want to do that unless and until spammers have made it necessary to do so.  I think that we have passed that point.  However, this site belongs to Tiberius, and I am not going to make a change of that nature without his approval.  To that end, I've asked him to weigh in on the issue.

I think very mild limitations, such as a limit on the maximum number of threads that can be created per time for new users, might already serve as a first measure. I have no idea how hard it is to implement something like that.

[Edwardo Piet]

But in this aspect of spam removal, only the almighty Tibs can try something. They are getting in too easily captain!!!

Oh asking him if he will kindly do something about it. Sure that's fine.

I thought you weren't gonna ask him to do anything. Praying and "doing fuck all" is kinda synonymous

[I_am_not_mafia]

On all the forums that I've run the only thing that stops the automated spam bots is to have questions that need human intelligence to answer.

They can be very simple questions like

1) Using one word, what is two plus two?
2) What is the last letter of the previous answer?

etc

You do need to change them occasionally because a human will come along and answer them and then you get lots of bots coming through. And you also need to make sure that you don't set an incorrect answer. Getting someone to double check this will stop this from happening though.

With the SMF software this is a mod that you can install quite easily. I don't know what's available for other forum software though.

[Ludwig]

A sure-fire way to eliminate any and all spambots would be to hide the posts of new users by default and then manually make them visible depending on whether or not their first few posts are advertisements and/or spam. There should be a plug-in for MyBB forums out there that does something like that.

[Edwardo Piet]

Or just make me staff because I'm here pretty much 24/7

[abaris]

A sure-fire way to eliminate any and all spambots would be to hide the posts of new users by default and then manually make them visible depending on whether or not their first few posts are advertisements and/or spam. There should be a plug-in for MyBB forums out there that does something like that.

As far as I observe there aren't that many new members joining every given day. Seems to me it would be easier to monitor their first few posts than to remove a spam bot on a spree, posting shit every few seconds.

[houseofcantor]

All of you people volunteering the mods for extra work need to become mods.

[abaris]

All of you people volunteering the mods for extra work need to become mods.

I'm not, but given the time I spend here, I wouldn't mind to monitor newcomer's threads for a spell. Especially since it's only threads. The bots don't post replies.

[Edwardo Piet]

I'd be happy to become a mod if all I had to do was ban the spammers and relinquish my other staff responsibilites haha. I could get them banned pretty fucking fast.