The Watcher on 2/10/2008 at 11:06
I don't know if this has been considered, but...
I run several forums, a couple of which are rather visible and busy (nothing on TTLG scale, but enough to keep me busy). I also ran into the problem of spammers signing up and posting junk - capchas were doing nothing, email verification wasn't helping, and after too many manual deletes, I tried the "administrator approval" route.
It got old. Fast. Trying to sift the spam accounts from real ones took time and effort, and always ran some risk of falsely rejecting valid signups. And I was only dealing with 80 or so a day.
In the end, I disabled the admin approval, and modified the registration form and code. On the registration forms for the forums in question, I now have two fields: the person signing up must put the correct answer to two questions in those fields, otherwise the registration fails. For example, on the forums I run for a WoW raiding team, I ask two questions specific to WoW that a real person can find out easily (and should know anyway, if they're joining a raiding team). Since I instituted these changes, I haven't had a single spammer signup on any of the forums - the spammer scripts keep trying, it's not like they have gone away, but none of them seem to know how to handle those two extra fields, let alone what to put in them.
I suspect that, if TTLG adopted a similar technique, it would be quite effective. The hard part would be choosing suitable questions, as they need to be easy for a valid person to answer, but non-obvious enough that a spammer can't trivially answer them too, if they can modify their scripts. I can use domain-specific questions to make this possible, TTLG has wider coverage, so suitable question selection would be harder...
*shrug* Just a suggestion, anyway.
David on 2/10/2008 at 11:18
I've looked at this and it I get the feeling that it would work initially, but that it would be quickly overcome.
It is something that is already included in the current version of vBulletin, which I am looking at moving to and will probably be enabled.
The admin approval really is just a temporary measure, just until the current bombardment dies down.
Thanks for you suggestion and insight, though, it's always interesting to hear how other people are trying to combat the spammer problem! :)
twisty on 2/10/2008 at 11:39
Is there any reason why we don't use CAPTCHA to thwart the evil doers?
David on 2/10/2008 at 11:53
We do, but the CAPTCHAs are solved by humans, not machines, which makes them pretty ineffective, but better than nothing.
The machine retrieves the CAPTCHA image, sends it back to a human operator who's sole job is to send the solutions back to the machine, which fills in the answer and carries on its merry way.
R Soul on 2/10/2008 at 16:08
What if the text on the registration page said "Type the following characters, but enter the first two in reverse order"?
Is is likely the machine would send its master a link to the page, or just the image?
nickie on 2/10/2008 at 17:51
No suggestion but a question - to satisfy my curiosity only as I'm a bit ignorant about this stuff. I'm assuming that it's all these weird names that aren't names that are spammers. Is that right? If so, and as registrations are being manually verified, why do they appear in the 'Welcome to the newest member' bit. Or, apart from spammers, is there also a spate of genuine people with weird names.
David on 2/10/2008 at 18:56
They do appear in the 'Newest Member' bit, but there are also genuine members with odd names.
And I just checked 200 new registrations and rejected 192 of them, and I wasn't convinced about some of the remaining 8, either.
nickie on 2/10/2008 at 19:16
An eff of a lot of work then. Thanks for the explanation. Perhaps all new registrations should be pronouncable at least!
BrokenArts on 2/10/2008 at 19:27
They need to be tarred and feathered, THEN, and only then, they shall prove their worthiness to the fold!! Only the powers that be know the secrets, I can only guess.
nickie on 2/10/2008 at 19:30
LOL - I have now got a mental picture of BA tarring and feathering. :laff: In their dreams!
