The Great Tree

brian · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:17 am Post subject:

Yep. It's a nice bit of barrier-to-entry, though. You have to kind-of lurk around the community long enough to be able to join this group. Keeps the riff-raff out. Cool

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Moiety Jean · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:08 am Post subject:

::coughs delicately into her fist::
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Ashtar · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 10:17 am Post subject:

ghaelen · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject:

You could also show them an image of an age and ask them what their favorite/easiest/hardest puzzle in that age is. Fans would at least know there were puzzles, and spammers aren't going to invest the time to find out so they'll make something up. Which, of course, you will catch in a flash. Wink

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Erik · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:04 pm Post subject:

I also have some sort of solution, wich I use on my own phpBB-bases website.

Delete the website field in the registration form. Then, check (in PHP) if a website is given. If yes, it's a spam bot, because people can't fill in a website in the form.
Users can always fill in their website if they edit their profile.

It works great because most spam bots always fill in a website.

Cycreim · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:26 pm Post subject:

Erik, that doesn't stop human spambots, i.e. poor kids being paid a dime an hour to register for websites and post spam, unfortunately.
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Moiety Jean · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:43 pm Post subject:

We are already using a website deflector which hides the website field from human eyes during registration, but a bot will still detect and fill it in, in which case registration is immediately denied.

The D'ni characters on the registration form are very simple and easy for anyone with a basic knowledge of Riven or Uru to figure out. There's no counting involved. Very Happy

I'd rather we didn't talk specifics about it in a public forum like this one, so that a spammer doesn't have an easy clue right here on the forum.
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Moiety Jean · Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:56 pm Post subject:

The other point of all of our "fixes" was to reduce the amount of direct supervision we admins needed to give new registrants. Having to check and approve quiz answers takes more time.

Right now, we're doing great, but we may reopen this discussion when Live opens and if we start getting a flood of new posters.
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KI#44727
"There is a certain beautiful danger when a group of geeks get together to entertain themselves." ~Orin Drake

JWPlatt · Explorer Joined: 12 Feb 2007 Posts: 1

Old thread, sorry. Maybe you have solved your problem, but I've been considering using a static password for registration regardless of what the graphical representation is. So it in effect is a registartion password which must be handed out ahead of time. It can be public and can be changed form time to time. The graphical confirmation will still be generated, but isn't used. Recognition software won't matter. What do you think?

Moiety Jean · Posted: Sun May 06, 2007 11:56 am Post subject:

That could be a good idea. Since the last post I don't think we've had a single spam user registration (some users register and never post, so it's difficult to be sure what their intentions are, but I haven't seen any names come through which were obvious spammers). Our current system appears to be working quite well. Smile

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KI#44727
"There is a certain beautiful danger when a group of geeks get together to entertain themselves." ~Orin Drake