One reason why the forum going down hill..

[Chippiewill]

How does a spam bot (computer?) get past a captcha though? :S

Software these days allow Spam Bots to either:

a) Work out what it says
b) Have the creator type out the captcha for the bot
c) The bot will copy the captcha image onto their own website (Where someone may register for a service provided e.g. a web host 'front') get someone to complete it and then the bot will use the answer on the site they are trying to get onto.

[Hecktix]

Another thing worth remembering is some spam "bots" aren't bots, just people being paid to spam.

[Immenseman]

I think bots are more of a common problem on such a small forum (in comparison to the forums that are out there) - like Alex said I've seen some forums that when you sign up they ask you 1+1 or something similar, maybe that would prevent spam bots, not sure.

[Sammeth.]

I think a question upon registration would help in regards to bots, and would be a much more user-friendly approach rather than the current approval system. At the end of the day, any spam that does get through can be dealt with by moderators. Its what they are there to do and it won't exactly make a crazy extra workload to deal with.

[Seatherny]

I think bots are more of a common problem on such a small forum (in comparison to the forums that are out there) - like Alex said I've seen some forums that when you sign up they ask you 1+1 or something similar, maybe that would prevent spam bots, not sure.

It works amazingly well. When I tried it, it stopped pretty much all bots.

[Immenseman]

Excellent, hope it's added within the next few days (if it's easy to do) and post approval scrapped.

[Seatherny]

Excellent, hope it's added within the next few days (if it's easy to do) and post approval scrapped.

Its built in the vBulletin system I believe and takes literally 5 minutes to activate.

[Nixt]

Its built in the vBulletin system I believe and takes literally 5 minutes to activate.

I am working on the assumption that this option is in vB Optimise in ACP? If so, Matt and I do not have access to it and this will need to be referred to Jin (I will PM him now).

[xxMATTGxx]

I am working on the assumption that this option is in vB Optimise in ACP? If so, Matt and I do not have access to it and this will need to be referred to Jin (I will PM him now).

Garion is correct regarding this. (For Moderated Group)

[Jin]

Yeah I've registered on a few forums that have a simple maths question to register, that should suffice nicely.

I am not convinced, purely because all computers, languages and basic languages are capable of arithmetic. It wouldn't be hard for a program to answer a mathematical question.

I would also like to throw out that the approval system (maybe not the best solution) is not just their to thwart spamming but also scammers and recently banned members who feel the need to cause some sort of nuisance.

There is nothing wrong in trying out what it would be like without having a post approval queue so maybe we could test it and see what sort of impact it has on the forums.