Junk messages!

[veggiechicken]

The Vine is being inundated with spam today. Why is it that, when I join other forums, I have to have my application approved, but anyone can sign on here, post junk and disappear?
Just asking ...........

[PyreneesPlot]

Do you not want a nice new fitted kitchen?

I've given up using one forum which is now probably three quarters spam and the 'messages' are never removed so you have to plough through reams of junk to find the good stuff.

[veggiechicken]

The way today's messages are going - this one's three quarters spam too Boring, innit

[chris]

We've mentioned it before to the admin folk, I can't remember their reasons, but perhaps its to do with attracting more people to the vine - it's off putting when you have to awaiting moderation/approval.

*shrug*

There's various other mechanisms that could be employed too (captcha, image based captcha, image based selection, etc etc). Not all are compatible across all devices/browsers though.

[veggiechicken]

Glad to see your finger on the Zapper Chris
I'm assuming that the spammers are banned but just reregister with another rubbish name and keep reincarnating themselves

[Bren In Pots]

The Vine is being inundated with spam today. Why is it that, when I join other forums, I have to have my application approved, but anyone can sign on here, post junk and disappear?
Just asking ...........

All this spam must make modding a very boring and time consuming task

[veggiechicken]

Maybe Admin are more concerned about member numbers

[daviddevantnhisspiritwife]

What you need is verification questions that a bot can't answer. A question I recently devised for a forum:

An unhappy horse has shoes on half of it's feet. How many shoes does it's owner need to purchase to make the horse happy?

[veggiechicken]

Ermmmmmmmm Eighty - if your horse is called Imelda

[Tripmeup]

The GR panto horse has six, so ERM....
... and it usually has 12 by the time the bar closes

[veggiechicken]

..........that's the pink elephants........

[Kirk]

An unhappy horse has shoes on half of it's feet. How many shoes does it's owner need to purchase to make the horse happy?

That relies on:
(a) Knowing what a horse is,
(b) Knowing why it would be wearing shoes,
(c) Being able to count correctly the number of feet,
(d) Being able to determine half of however many feet were counted.
(e) Being able to subtract d from c and not the other way round.

Would you like to guess how many would get it wrong?
I would estimate 20-30 from every 100.

What if the shoes it has are uncomfortable and making it unhappy, shoes on horses are not a natural thing, we nail them on. Answer could therefore be -2.

[veggiechicken]

...........you forgot to ask whether it had had a leg amputated

[Martin H]

Apparently all those bot-defeating questions and "captchas" are old hat now. I read that the next big thing is going to be like this:

PlayCAPTCHA simulator

I have to say, it's much more fun than trying to decipher some squiggly non-word.

[Bill HH]

To make him really happy I would take the remaining two off.