BOT PROBLEM

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Yes, the staff knows about it. It is hard to miss. WIP and I have been clearing it out, and maybe others are too, I do not know. I have two requests to make of our site's userbase:

1) Do not respond to the bots. It isn't cute and makes the tedious task of blamming the topics harder.

2) Do not make long-winded bitch posts about it.

Thank you.
I clear out 3 almost every morning.
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
My bad for responding to them.

And it should be said- cleaning out today's massive bot-swamp is some impressive work. Well done, gentlemen.
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
I think this problem has really hit it's tipping point. I mean, bots were a slight annoyance when they posted toothpaste ads and the like, but their latest offerings are decidely NSFW.

I think now's as good a time as any to start tossing anit-bot ideas around. What I recall discussed in previous anti-bot discussions:

(1) A bot dump forum above our ravaged G & D board. Since the vast majority of these bots attack the top-most board on a forum, bot posts would collect there and stagnate. The problem with this idea is that it would be difficult to implement into the layout and it would definity look jarring to see the fore-most forum as a ravaged robotic waste.

(2) A short list of grammar questions required to activate an account. Similar to the Altar of Literacy in a certain browser game, this would ask aspiring new RMNeers a small battery of questions on such things as you're/your and there/their/they're. This could bar many - if not all - bots from RMN, but it could have an adverse effect on our userbase's growth.

(3) One of those letter-image generators CAPTCHAs upon signup. This may or may no be the easiest to code - I'm unsure - but it would certainly be less jarring for members. I don't know if bots would be able to grab the answer form the site itself or not, so I can't really speak for it's security or lack thereof.

Any thoughts?
tardis
is it too late for ironhide facepalm
308
FYI Chaos- those 'letter-image generators' are called CAPTCHAs, and unless I'm mistaken, I think we already have one.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, higher-ups.
But responses to bot posts really let you look deep into the person posting them!
Those image ones are nasty! My virgin eyes!

EDIT:
I've moved 5 bot posts with images to the dump in the last 3 mins.
They've been doing it all today kentona.

I think we could use a fake forum above the game discussion forum just so we can at least have them all in one place and stop disrupting game discussion. >>
WIP
I'm not comfortable with any idea that can't be expressed in the form of men's jewelry
11363
The G&D forum is currently disabled from having new topics posted pending a more thorough fix.
Here's hoping they don't start invading GD&T.
post=95686
This could bar many - if not all - bots from RMN, but it could have an adverse effect on our userbase's growth.


Maybe a negative effect on growth, but heh, a positive effect on the actual members we receive.

Except I guess, we wouldn't get foreign members. That would suck.
I just removed a bot post. :/
That was a manual post made before the forum was locked.
Well you guys are doing a pretty good job because I haven't seen a bot topic in ages. I don't check the City Dump ever so...well done.

What happened to making a hidden forum at the top for bots and only the admins can see it like the other hidden ones they have? That way it wouldn't be unsightly.
LouisCyphre
can't make a bad game if you don't finish any games
4523
That way bots couldn't access and would therefore skip it.
Actually, there IS a hidden forum at the top already. Only the admins can see it.
halibabica
RMN's Official Reviewmonger
16873
To stop a bot from signing up, all we have to do is include a question in the registration process that it's not programmed to answer, right? We already know they can crack our CAPTCHA thing.

I don't know how well this would work, but suppose we include a simple trivia question that any human could easily answer but a bot wouldn't know what to do with. For example:


Who is this?

Everyone knows it's Mario, but would a bot be able to answer something like that correctly? It might be able to look up the title of the picture or something, but if you upload it with an incorrect file name, I don't see how a bot could ever derive the correct response.
except use craze in a dress so only the elite can join
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