Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

There has to be a way to stop these from being created... At some point, there won't be any username left :/

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

Last I knew PrawnSkunk had blocked a domain that most of the bots were coming from but they did start reappearing in recent times and I'm sure he can make the same solution as before.

It does suck to see when all of the "Latest Profiles" are bots though.

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

I always wondered why they use the avatars they use

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

but I want uggs

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

Firstly, big thanks to Red Blaster for pretty much reporting every bot he sees. I subsequently ban those. A month ago I attempted to do mass bot banning by finding root IPs. I have since stopped doing that because 1) it is extremely time-consuming, 2) it takes time to pick out legit users within the crowd of bots and exclude them from being banned, 3) the bots seem to have many varying IPs, so even banning a range of IPs only goes so far. In the past, I used to be able to find many bot accounts linked to one or a few similar IP addresses. Now I'm finding one IP being completely different from another, each IP containing many other bots as well. Frankly, banning is a bandaid solution. We need to have registration include further measures to stop bots from registering. Bots can completely make up nonsensical email addresses to register.

And yes, it turns out that the creepy guy in the black and yellow pictures is actually Noel Fielding...

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

Really? Google images told me it was Noel Fielding, so that's the only clue I had. Out of curiosity, who is it?

I stopped reporting them recently because I didn't know if it was worth it, but I will start doing it again, then. I was wondering if we could use systems were accounts are moderator approved before they get deleted 7 days after creation, or something like that which I've seen a lot on other forums. Indeed, it would be yet another thing to code into the forums, but I'm just suggesting in the (very unlikely) case that no one had suggested this before.

Also, there's reCAPTCHA from google, which is a free and pretty successful avenue.

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

No problem!

I don't know how hard or easy this would be to implement, but it sounds like a pretty sound method.

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

Some British actor/comedian guy. I don't really know much.

Re: Forum bots Smash Bros and Noel Fielding
 

Or maybe a mystery question like "how old is bmah" or "is bmah chinese" to see if they can get the answer. :P