Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

A good friend at EDF gave a suggestion that I think could be pretty useful. Here's the idea:

So, is this a good idea? Personally I wonder if this has been considered before, but I don't know, and I'd like to hear James' opinion on it and if it would help to combat the bot problem.

(For those who won't click the image, it reads: "If you're having a spambot problem use a basic question in your account registration like "what color is an apple" instead of a captcha. That's how EDF stays mostly bot free.")

It's been so long since I joined or logged out that I legit have forgotten what the log in screen looks like and asks for. Something basic like that should work.

"What color is an Apple"

Still, a different question might be okay.

Don't know how hard it would be to implement, but sounds like it could work.

Do bots nowadays routinely get past CAPTCHAs?

Yes, why do you think we've had so many bots around here?

Kingdom of Loathing (OLD OLD browser MMO) had a thing where you have to type in exactly "I know the risks of using the chat and will abide by the rules" or some shit like that, followed by the question "What was the color of George Washington's favorite black horse?" and you had to answer "black" (posting any other color would start you off with a chat temp ban, but humor aside).

I see the potential in this, yet I also don't see how the botmaster can't just see what we're up to and integrate a workaround.

Login screen is just username and password. It's account registration we want to fix.

I like the idea a lot.

Is it possible to get the one 4chan has, where you have to click the images of storefronts and rivers? I find it hard to see Korean spambots getting past that anytime soon.

I'd like to know how they do that…