spam block

[VictoriaGotaSecret]

Is there any way that an question or questions in the sign up can be added to prevent spam bots?

I know some sites have you do a mini intro in the registration

[Infidelitas]

There is a Capacha, I am not sure how they get round it though

[Origami]

Beyond a captcha there really isn't much else to do without it being a burden on new members.
You could create some slightly tricky question such as "what is the fourth word in this question" with the answer being "fourth" but some bots are assisted by a human filling out the spambot countermeasures manually and as such this would be useless.

[StoppingTime]

We used to have what josh said, but the bots cracked those too. Honestly beyond requiring ever new signup to be approved (which we aren't going to do) there isn't all too much more that can be done. Spam bots usually come in waves, but I expect them to die down sooner than later.

[xXl0sth0peXx]

What was said already is spot on. There really isn't much we can do, it's a fact of life here on VT. As staff, we try and get rid of them as quick as possible. And yeah, there are times when we can't get rid of it the second it's posted, but we try and do it as fast as possible.

[kryptonite]

I don't know if they already do or not, but I've heard that keeping the software updated is another good way of keeping the bots out.

But yeah, it's a fact of life. Just hit that "report post" button and all will be good. :)

[TheMatrix]

Mini-intros are annoying, as someone would have to read those all, and we haven't got the time or will for that. And if we don't moderate it, well, then there's the prime opportunity to spam right away!

I don't like the word verifications because they never work. Fun trivia: when I tried to sign up in early June 2010 here on my PSP, the image wouldn't even display -- there was a captchca (I always spell that wrong) -- so I just gave up for 2 months. And it took several tries to get it right when I did do it on a computer.

And even then, it's all horribly ineffective. Now I don't remember if I told this before, but spammers may be very annoying, but they are efficient. Most of the time, anyways.
How they work is simple. Usually they are in a country where laws are ambiguous and vague at best, and cheap labour is easy to come by. So they go to random people on the street, and offer them a job, with one task: solve that captchca for the bots. For every one they solve, they get a few cents.
You really can't fault them, though, this is probably their only income, and you have to do what it takes to survive.
Obviously not all of them work that way, but if you find yourself thinking "how on earth did they get past that!?" then this is one possible answer.

[DerBear]

The Administration team recently took steps to avoid spamming.

http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2362715#post2362715

[ImCoolBeans]

The Administration team recently took steps to avoid spamming.

http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2362715#post2362715

This will hopefully cut back on spam.

Captchas get cracked and a lot of "bots" have humans to assist with the security questions/human verification steps on sites. It's not very hard to get around unfortunately.

[jaxian rhyder]

Off topic but how many administrators are there?

[Jess]

Off topic but how many administrators are there?

one, ImCoolBeans

[jaxian rhyder]

Moderator not administrator my bad

[Jess]

you'll see all mods here: http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showgroups.php

12 mods & global mods

[ImCoolBeans]

Moderator not administrator my bad

Here is a current and complete list of the staff: http://www.virtualteen.org/forums/showgroups.php

Please keep this thread on topic. If you have other questions not related to this topic then post your own thread.

[Rayquaza]

I looked at the sign up page. The only active use of the CAPTCHA is the random question. It might be advisable to use an image based CAPTCHA. (http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore)

[DerBear]

They've proven to be rather ineffective, the recent mod if it turns out to work properly should prevent less spam than we have now without having an annoying captcha system that bots can crack with aid of a human which is mostly likely how they get by our current system.

[ImCoolBeans]

I looked at the sign up page. The only active use of the CAPTCHA is the random question. It might be advisable to use an image based CAPTCHA. (http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore)

We have an image based captcha, but as I said, captchas get cracked and bots get around them just as easily if not more easily than the security questions, so we are not using it anymore.