Asking the "Are you human" question

[Lovin_it]

When I noticed I was restricted to the new members area, I knew exactly why. I run my own forum and for months was flooded with 100 bots a week trying to register. (I've got a seriously low volume forum so I just require approval before posting.)

It was still a ton of drama for me, personally, having to go through each registration and determine if it was real or a bot.

I added a simple question to my registration form - user has to type two words... fill in the blank I am trying to join Lovin_it's ______ Forum ______.

I haven't had a bot register since. Just a thought... it won't be noticeable to any regular users here, but for the mods who spend a lot of time deleting posts from bots in the new member area, it could save a ton of time.

 

[rolygate]

Thank you. We have considered these Captcha-type questions but we don't get many bots that make it through the registration procedure, most are rejected by a transparent screening process.

Our biggest problem is human spammers who are promoting e-cigs, and the occasional N1ke shoes pusher and so on. The 5-post limit corrals them nicely so we can boot them. Before we had that, we were buried by e-cig spam all over the forum.

 

[Lovin_it]

Gotcha... that makes sense. Given how comprehensive this forum is, I figured you had most of the angles covered, but you never know what people don't know.

Keep up the great work... this has been a valuable resource for me.