Animation Source Forums

Seeing how more and more spam bots are showing up, I thought of an idea that might just do the trick. Why not just approve accounts? As spam bot accounts are very easy to seek out. But just to be sure that a actual person is trying to register, have them write about why they're joining to make sure that they're indeed a human, and not a spam bot. This could also prevent multiple accounts as well.

What are your thoughts?

I don't know the facts here, but the "approve accounts" system is mainly for private sites/forums. With Animation Source growing and more members registering every day I doubt this is possible.

RECAPTCHA, a question and email activation is enough for me.

I like this idea; I have seen sites that filter out bots with simple math questions, like 2+2. If we had something like that, we could stop bots in their tracks.

But they are getting more and more intelligent, and something like this is already similar to what is on the site. (writing a specific word)
Maybe I should change it to "Write the site name" because it seems some of the bots are able to bypass the current word protection. (probably because it's written next to the field)

EDIT : I have changed this. It should help.

I've found that a good idea is putting up one of those "typing boxes". That way in order to prove you're human and not a spam bot, you'd have to type the letters. What I've heard is that spam bots cannot do this, therefore they wouldn't be able to register

Excellent idea Mighty 8]
Let's hope it works (if Steet did indeed change it).


'Growing' I hope you're using loosely. How many accounts made here actually stay active?
Three or so posts and it's like the person died. This annoys me about as much as spam bots.

I didn't say anything about the manual activation, but it's quite obvious : that's not possible. It would be tedious considering how many members register on the site each day, bots or not. And with a low protection, there would be too many bots registering, making the task even more tedious.

I'm against CAPTCHAs, I have said it and will repeat again. The bots CAN get through them, they're very "smart". Unless you make it very difficult to read, but then, it will also annoy the humans very much. (I know I hate when I have to try and write them 5 times in a row because they're nearly unreadable...)

I'll just stick with the question (that I have changed), which seems to work well enough.

I hate to say it, but your new plan failed. Check this out:

That one registered a few minutes before I applied the change...so it's not possible to know whether the change I made had an effect or not.

Again:

I'm starting to wonder again if they're not using the forums for registering instead of the site...(even though I completly deactivated the register function on the forums)

I have added some logging when a member registers : so the next time you see a bot which registered after THIS date, give me its name. That should provide me enough details to understand how they're going through exactly.

One or two bots are still able to get through, I'll add another technique to prevent them :

http://www.inspirationbit.com/fighting- ... t-captcha/

Then again, it seems there really are HUMANS registering manually for posting spam, so it won't be ever entirely avoidable - even with captchas or anything.

Isn't there a way to trace where they're coming from? They all have similar names and have been posting about golf. They must be coming from a site that sells
golfing equipment.

They use proxies (well not exactly, they use computers from innocent people that have been infected with spywares), so there's no way to trace them.