Upgraded to 1.1.14

[Slash]

Finished upgrading to 1.1.14 and added two ads to the rotator.

If this doesn't prove enough to stop the spambots, I will enhance the registration question so it's harder for them.

[Slash]

A horde of spambots registered last night.

keyCAPTCHA has been installed, hope it works ok.

[Psiweapon]

Seriously, what's the point? Do people ever click on spambot links?

Can we safely assume that a person who clicks on a spambot link is smarter than the spambot? That it is the other way around seems more plausible.

[Darren Grey]

It ain't working, Slash 

From my experience of administration at other sites I suggest you add a "proof of humanity" style question, such as "What is your favourite roguelike?"  This makes picking them out much easier, but more importantly I've found that it flummoxes the spammers completely and you get less of them registering.  There's not been a single spam post on the ADOM forums since we introduced a question asking for the user's favourite race/class (there have been a small number of registrations, but I've deleted them all before they can cause any trouble).

And if you want any help let me know - I'd be happy to lend a hand.

[Psiweapon]

At this rate, slash will have to implement Turing tests for registration by next christmas 

[Bear]

Sigh.  Most recently in "General Discussion" under the title "Netbook brands" where some poor pitiful spambot helpfully provides us with a link to its favorite site and begs our help picking out a good cheap laptop..... 

They're getting better, damnit.

I agree that "proof of personhood" needs to rely on something legit users to the site would know, or be required to use some resources we don't give them to find out, as opposed to some kid in India who gets five bucks for every 100 captchas he breaks. 

Seriously: ask a question that can be easily answered by someone who plays the games, or with one minute and a search engine.

[Z]

From my experience of administration at other sites I suggest you add a "proof of humanity" style question, such as "What is your favourite roguelike?"

I like this question, and Slash could access IRLDb for a list of roguelikes, but there would be a problem with roguelikes not in Roguebasin (I think there are some) or aliases (e.g. somebody could enter "Crawl", "Dungeon Crawl", "DCSS", "Ancient domains of mystery", "Dwarf Fortress", "Tales of Maj'Eyal" instead of the name given in RogueBasin). I am not sure whether giving a link to IRLDb/RogueBasin would do the work (human-assisted spambots would follow the links).

Hard to think of something not requiring a knowledge of a specific roguelike, maybe something like "what is the full name of ADOM?" could work?

Or maybe have a tiny JavaScript roguelike which you have to win in order to be allowed to register.

[Psiweapon]

Or:

What is the most reliable letter to drink a potion?

What do you see here?: "@"

What's short for Deep Dwarf Necromancer ?

You could have a question for each of the majors and select one randomly. That way if someone tries to register and a weird one pops up, they can just refresh.

[Z]

> What is the most reliable letter to drink a potion?

'q' in most roguelikes, but I think there are some with something like 'd', or 'u' (use) or object-verb.

> What do you see here?: "@"

If you mean the player character, that's also not in all roguelikes (I mean graphical ones). I am not sure how common is the knowledge that @ is used for the PC among graphical RL players.

> What's short for Deep Dwarf Necromancer ?

Such abbreviations are used only in Crawl (and maybe some other few games).

> You could have a question for each of the majors and select one randomly. That way if someone tries to register and a weird one pops up, they can just refresh.

What if somebody plays only minor roguelikes for some reason? Could be risky.

Maybe something like: "Many roguelikes have a feature that you need to start a new character after death. How is this feature called in RogueBasin?" or "Where was the first International Roguelike Development Conference held, according to RogueBasin?"

[Darren Grey]

The question doesn't need to have a set answer - it just needs to be something a moderator can look at and make an instant decision. If it's an unusual question then often the kid in India will just give up and go to the next site on his list. Like I said this works well on the ADOM forums, without any automatic checking of answers.

In fact anything with q set answer is bad, cause eventually they'll brute force it.

[Psiweapon]

Yes, I thought that too, but had already posted. It was just an example.

[Z]

OK, if a moderator can look at it then favorite RL is a good question.

[Psiweapon]

Yea, that sounds good.

[Slash]

Before the update, I had added "What's the most common symbol to represent the player in a roguelike (hint, check the roguetemple logo)". But it didn't seem to work, I'll have to add it back.

Also I don't know if these spambots registered prior to the installation of the captcha system. That's one possibility.

Anyhow, if any of you wants to contribute a modified signup script for SMF 1.1.14, I'll put it up.

Best!

[Psiweapon]

Oh man is it getting worse.

Give me a v& hammer and I'll delete those posts on sight...