FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

The forum could use some better spam(bot) protection. Aren't there suitable plugins out there?

t's true, the spam(from bots) in general discussion is a problem...

webdesigner97 wrote:The forum could use some better spam(bot) protection. Aren't there suitable plugins out there?

True indeed..

Which anti-spam plugin or method blocks spam bots in an efficient way while not annoying people or preventing them from posting?

Calinou wrote:Which anti-spam plugin or method blocks spam bots in an efficient way while not annoying people or preventing them from posting?

a "well balanced" human moderator

twoelk wrote:

Calinou wrote:Which anti-spam plugin or method blocks spam bots in an efficient way while not annoying people or preventing them from posting?

a "well balanced" human moderator

So very true that it has to be repeated. Many systems that aim at detecting humans require JavaScript from third parties, sometimes even cookies - things that put security and privacy of posters at risk for such little gain. Even the old questions on the forum where problematic - regular posters failed to answer them correctly due to the way the answer was expected.

Those advertisements in the forum have been annoying, yet they where few and soon reported.

Sokomine wrote:

twoelk wrote:

Calinou wrote:Which anti-spam plugin or method blocks spam bots in an efficient way while not annoying people or preventing them from posting?

a "well balanced" human moderator

So very true that it has to be repeated. Many systems that aim at detecting humans require JavaScript from third parties, sometimes even cookies - things that put security and privacy of posters at risk for such little gain. Even the old questions on the forum where problematic - regular posters failed to answer them correctly due to the way the answer was expected.

Those advertisements in the forum have been annoying, yet they where few and soon reported.

But IMO they seem to become more and more. Or I'm just online at the right times ^^ I wonder whether the posts are really created by bots, or even humans getting paid for doing this... The ifrst option could be solved (at least partially) with a Captcha that has to be entered when creating a new topic. That wouldn't be that much more expenditure for the users, but harder for bots.

webdesigner97 wrote:I wonder whether the posts are really created by bots, or even humans getting paid for doing this...

Good question. I saw a site once that promised people a free download of something if they advertised that site somewhere else. So it might as well be not-too-bright people.

webdesigner97 wrote: The ifrst option could be solved (at least partially) with a Captcha that has to be entered when creating a new topic. That wouldn't be that much more expenditure for the users, but harder for bots.

At least we don't have to worry about blind people in MT - they wouldn't be able to enjoy the game anyway. Still, these captchas nearly never come from the same site that hosts the forum and are therefore something suspicious.

Spambots usually work on fill the first *two* info boxes they find.

Now, a honeypot version would be to hide a 1x1px text boxes on the page nested *before* the topic title and post text, as any text entered there would set off the spam alerts -- even if they put text in every box.

It may not catch a human posting spam, but it will catch most bots that can't fill anything but text boxes.

What about to add captcha test?