Cutting Down Spam/Bot Registrations

[cenacle]

Some sites have a page after the registration page that requires entering a random string of numbers/letters etc before completing registration, or else having to email to confirm a registration. I wonder if we could get something like that set up. It's ridiculous to see dozens of supposedly "new members" every week when we all know a lot of them are spammers. How hard would one of these ideas be to implement, if we wanted to?

[Indra]

Cen, what you are referring to is known as a CAPTCHA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha

There is pre-written code out there that could be implemented into the site registration process.  If nobody else is available to do so, I would be willing to amend the registration process and code to include a CAPTCHA.  Just let me know...

[cenacle]

excellent info, indra! thanks i think i'll email andy and see what he thinks of the idea, and your offer!

[TroutMask]

There is an image captcha available too. I implemented it here:

http://www.radardetector.net/profile.ph ... greed=true

-TM

[cenacle]

I emailed Andy on this matter, and awaiting his reply either in this thread or by email response

[Stonehenge]

That should help a lot in cutting down on the spambots. Many sites use them already for that reason.

[andy]

So there is actually a CAPTCHA built into phpBB already, but it seems its not great and easily bypassed. This being the case Ive implemented a better one which seems less likely to be over ridden by spam bots.

If someone could test this out for me just to make sure registration is still possible I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Andy

[Indra]

I just registered as the name TestDelete.  It says that an admin needs to approve the registration.  I'm not sure who handles that, but let us know if it has come your way...

[cenacle]

did the CAPTCHA thingy come up when you registered? at the right point in the process?

[Indra]

Yes, the captcha was there.

[Stonehenge]

We had been getting a bunch of registrations every day up till now. On the first which was thursday we got 5 but on the second which was yesterday we only got "test delete" and today none so far. I'd say it was a success. Thanks, andy, that will help a lot. Looks like 90% of the registrations were from bots.

[andy]

Thats great, pleased to hear its working well. Now the long slow labourious task of removing the existing spam registrations.

Andy

[Indra]

Cen: good idea
Andy: nice implementation

[cenacle]

I noticed a few over the weekend and this morning. Hopefully, these are real people and not super clever mega-bots! :twisted: We'll have to keep an eye on this...

[Indra]

I kinda hope that they are super clever mega-bots.  Such an entity might be worth having around...