Captcha!? Really?

[Starke]

It sucks, I know, but until there's a better solution, this is the best I can come up with.

On the unpleasant end of the spectrum, what about flood control? A 30 or 60 second flood control limit between posts by a user? I'd think that would be less irritating than a Capstha that won't accept what it's requesting. It'd still be annoying, but, still...

 

[DJShire]

BUY PANTIES for your BUTT! 1200% Real America wool! It make P3N_IS BIG for great sadness. You wife get hard at TEEN GIRL NAKED.

101111 NO RUSSIAN

victory at link! ww.google.com

Spoiler

loljk but yeah captcha's are weird. What's up, Escapist?

Walking a thin line, aren't ya?

That's how I live life...
*sunglasses*
ON THE EDGE.
*sued by EA for using the word 'Edge'*

1000 internets to you good sir

But anyways, you guys are totally missing how much fun this could be, just post some of the more funny captchas we end up getting, like "animal rape" (I've seen that one before).

 

[HK_01]

EDIT: Currently only seeing it on about half of the threads that I view. I assume this is being implemented even still.

The Escapist did warn us about this... the captcha will only be implemented on random threads (except the Pub Club, which get no captchas because no spambot would pay money). I haven't seen a single captcha yet, myself.

Here's a little conspiracy theory then: The Escapist just implemented this to get people to join the PubClub and for no other reason.

I'm just kidding, but it is now the strongest incentive for me to join, much more so than all those privileges you get (except for the custom title, that's awesome).

 

[superbatranger]

Unless you have a great solution, in which case I'm sure the guys in the Tech Team group would love to hear it.

It's either this or we start limiting signups.

I still like the idea of nuking the dudes who send the bots.

I'll go get... I forgot, who is it with an unholy amount of posts, has that .gif with the nuke exploding and whales flying everywhere that says "Nuke The Whales" and his title says "The Noble Nuker"?

I feel like I am the biggest dip for forgetting...

...Neonbob?

Can't we somehow implement this?

Spoiler

If we could, that would be awesome.

you can train bots to rate comments and posts.

I heard you can train them to get you breakfast, too.

Anyways, I haven't seen this captcha, but I imagine I will sometime soon.

 

[KefkaCultist]

some people need to chill about captcha, its not like its physically destroying your life every time you have to type a few letters to post. There have been some spam bots recently, I've seen several. Plus its not even like you have to do this every post.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Can I just say, this is going to be a absolute nightmare when ZP releases...

Especially as it just bounced me once...

 

[Rascarin]

I hate captcha's with a passion. I find it really, really hard to read them. But malicious bots - even though I don't think I've ever seen once since I've been here - are worse, I guess. I suppose we'll see how it goes.

 

[Weaver]

I wonder if they stop after awhile? I haven't seen one since the first few on my first few posts.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I wouldn't mind doing a Captcha or reCaptcha seeing as how I'm a "junior" member here. I would imagine that if you were a member for roughly 6 months and didn't incur moderator wrath that there would be some kind of exemption. But, hey, what needs to be done...needs to be done, I suppose, and I'm not one to complain about minor inconveniences. I had to do a Captcha on another thread I posted on earlier today but not here. Hopefully, this issue doesn't bog down the forum mods too much.

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

dumb question, but i thought i had heard bots could beat captcha now...can anyone confirm or deny that?

 

[zidine100]

... if they can get round a captcha when registering, throwing more at them is not going to work.....

Like I mentioned, it's not just spammers that automate posting, but malicious people as well. And they have no problem registering an account by hand to use to cause trouble. I'm sure you can find some people on the forums that remember certain incidents where we had an account post hundreds of threads full of pornography across multiple forums. We try to clean up problems like that quickly, but it has happened many times before.

When I have to implement things like this, I have to take into account how someone can cause the most damage possible, and limit that. Unfortunately, just gating registration alone, or just new threads, doesn't cover the "worst case" that I need to try to prevent.

It sucks, I know, but until there's a better solution, this is the best I can come up with.

... whats stopping them copying and pasting posts by hand? if there going to make accounts by hand then there not going to care about posting by hand i would assume, still the captcha will slow them down, and will stop most who just do random bot spam after registration so it does make sense to me now. i may have overlooked that possibility myself.

still there is no adequate solution to all these problems that i can see without limiting new users posts to a certain amount per day to limit damage, and that wouldn't go down well, so i guess this is the only real way.

Mabie captcha's for new users who haven't been here for a specific time (which would be somewhat more friendly to members), or a cut of post count? But then again that would mean sorting users into group's, and more than likely changing the structure of your database somewhat which would be a pain in the arse depending on the structure, and it would put more strain on it, but hell its a sugestion which would help limit annoyance to members who want to be here.

 

[Weaver]

... if they can get round a captcha when registering, throwing more at them is not going to work.....

Like I mentioned, it's not just spammers that automate posting, but malicious people as well. And they have no problem registering an account by hand to use to cause trouble. I'm sure you can find some people on the forums that remember certain incidents where we had an account post hundreds of threads full of pornography across multiple forums. We try to clean up problems like that quickly, but it has happened many times before.

When I have to implement things like this, I have to take into account how someone can cause the most damage possible, and limit that. Unfortunately, just gating registration alone, or just new threads, doesn't cover the "worst case" that I need to try to prevent.

It sucks, I know, but until there's a better solution, this is the best I can come up with.

... whats stopping them copying and pasting posts by hand? if there going to make accounts by hand then there not going to care about posting by hand i would assume, still the captcha will slow them down, and will stop most who just do random bot spam after registration so it does make sense to me now. i may have overlooked that possibility myself.

still there is no adequate solution to all these problems that i can see without limiting new users posts to a certain amount per day to limit damage, and that wouldn't go down well, so i guess this is the only real way.

Mabie captcha's for new users who haven't been here for a specific time (which would be somewhat more friendly to members), or a cut of post count? But then again that would mean sorting users into group's, and more than likely changing the structure of your database somewhat which would be a pain in the arse depending on the structure, and it would put more strain on it, but hell its a sugestion which would help limit annoyance to members who want to be here.

It's so we all buy publishers club subscriptions, obviously.
You could add a new column to the database "verified" say. Just a boolean. Go through and anyone with over, I dunno, 500 - 1000 posts becomes automatically verified as an authentic user and doesn't need to type the captcha?

 

[Armored Prayer]

Not really bothering me besides me apparently getting these wrong.

Are they cap or space sensitive?

 

[Armored Prayer]

Sorry for double post.

Damn thing keeps saying I'm wrong.

 

[Weaver]

Not really bothering me besides me apparently getting these wrong.

Are they cap or space sensitive?

They are both caps and space sensitive.

 

[Booze Zombie]

Phodbing should?
Oh, I like how that sounds like if Robin Hood was a thicky who couldn't even spell his own name.
Captcha can be fun.

 

[ultimateownage]

You don't have to use Captcha with every post, it'll just be every 20 forum posts you make. It's there to stop spam which is apparently quite common here, it's just that the threads are quickly removed.

 

[theSovietConnection]

BUY PANTIES for your BUTT! 1200% Real America wool! It make P3N_IS BIG for great sadness. You wife get hard at TEEN GIRL NAKED.

101111 NO RUSSIAN

victory at link! ww.google.com

Spoiler

loljk but yeah captcha's are weird. What's up, Escapist?

Walking a thin line, aren't ya?

That's how I live life...
*sunglasses*
ON THE EDGE.
*sued by EA for using the word 'Edge'*

That'd be the ever so popular Tim Langdell suing you for that one.

Anyway, have yet to encounter it, but I'm not what you'd call a prevelant poster, and I've seen more then enough bots here to justify needing the system.

 

[zidine100]

... if they can get round a captcha when registering, throwing more at them is not going to work.....

Like I mentioned, it's not just spammers that automate posting, but malicious people as well. And they have no problem registering an account by hand to use to cause trouble. I'm sure you can find some people on the forums that remember certain incidents where we had an account post hundreds of threads full of pornography across multiple forums. We try to clean up problems like that quickly, but it has happened many times before.

When I have to implement things like this, I have to take into account how someone can cause the most damage possible, and limit that. Unfortunately, just gating registration alone, or just new threads, doesn't cover the "worst case" that I need to try to prevent.

It sucks, I know, but until there's a better solution, this is the best I can come up with.

... whats stopping them copying and pasting posts by hand? if there going to make accounts by hand then there not going to care about posting by hand i would assume, still the captcha will slow them down, and will stop most who just do random bot spam after registration so it does make sense to me now. i may have overlooked that possibility myself.

still there is no adequate solution to all these problems that i can see without limiting new users posts to a certain amount per day to limit damage, and that wouldn't go down well, so i guess this is the only real way.

Mabie captcha's for new users who haven't been here for a specific time (which would be somewhat more friendly to members), or a cut of post count? But then again that would mean sorting users into group's, and more than likely changing the structure of your database somewhat which would be a pain in the arse depending on the structure, and it would put more strain on it, but hell its a sugestion which would help limit annoyance to members who want to be here.

It's so we all buy publishers club subscriptions, obviously.
You could add a new column to the database "verified" say. Just a boolean. Go through and anyone with over, I dunno, 500 - 1000 posts becomes automatically verified as an authentic user and doesn't need to type the captcha?

hmm i was thinking of a different table for each group with a relationship to said member table and using the member table as a (bleh i forgot the word for it but im sure you'd understand), but then again i am an idiot and like to over complicate things, your idea would be a hell of a lot easier and well more efficient in changing groups so i think i derped when i posted that. Still my instincts still sway me to my idea.

also i think publisher club subscriptions are affected by this aswell.