Idea for less bots getting through registration?

[Ryuukokoro]

Sil:

Is it possible for us to start a system where all registrations have to be manually accepted? I would be happy to take on this role for the community.

Back many years ago when I was part of a large RP mailing list site, we used yahoogroups to manage our mailing list. They had it so the group mod could put whatever they wanted for the boxes people had to fill out when they registered, and our mod had made a box and above it she wrote: "Please post something here that proves you're not a bot/spammer. What's your favorite color? Book? Why are you joining? Anything, let us know you're human!"

And then we had a couple people (myself being one) who would go in and check the registrations periodically and approve the ones that looked legit. Is there a way for Secundi to do this?

Even if I had to do something like.. send an email to a person who is trying to register here, and then when they email me back I approve the registration. I don't think that would be too much of a hassle. Many sites make you wait for your registration to be approved, so we wouldn't be in the minority.

Dunno if this is doable with the current Secundi set-up, but just a thought!

(PS: Also I had a thought about usernames. It seems to me that a lot of bot/spammers use random keystrokes to make their username. That's the initial thing that sets off my spammer radar. Could we change it so that usernames on Secundi HAVE to be a real word, or a combination of real words? Like ...I dunno, "Diamond Magic" could be a username, but not "horsfd feffer". I recently found an online gaming site that does this, only allowing real words for usernames. Not sure if it's for bot control, but that's what it made me think of lol)

[Solistia]

I know that on SMF, you need to be an admin to approve acconts. So that would be up to Silv to give you that status or not. Unless there's a mod out there can make it so a global mod can approve?

[Winged]

I've no idea if this would be possible or not, but i think it's a great idea and i'd be happy to help if needed.

[Silvanon]

Hum, well, I can say a definite no to require usernames to be words - the majority of us on here right now wouldn't make it through that check, and I wouldn't join a site that wouldn't allow me to call myself Silvanon.  I'll give some thought to the other suggestions.

[jojo]

At the Petz Kennel Club, the forum is programmed so that you can't make any posts until you make a post in the introduction forum. Actually, I'm not sure if approval is automatic or manual.

At any rate an idea is to give newly registered people some instructions, something that's automatically detectable. For example, instructions could be make an introduction post that contains some unique sentence like "Silvanon loves Secundi" and then once that happens the account is automatically approved.

That's just one example of task that could be required for approval, but I think something like this would be good because then we don't need manual approvals and it should prevent spammers from getting through.

[Willow]

Surely just manual acceptance would be the easiest to set up? If perhaps we could put a notice somewhere to notify people interested in joining that it's a simple bot-proof way of letting people join. I see people have volunteered for monitoring this sort of thing as well, so until we can find an ideal and compatible mod this could work? :3

But it seems a shame they come through (almost daily) since the registrations reopened (yay we've got at least one newbie though). x3;
<3

[jojo]

Manual acceptance would definitely be easier to set up, but I think it would be more work than automatic acceptance in the long run. Granted, if we did some automatic thing, Silv would be the only one working on it (though I could definitely pitch in code wise if needed -- ha, I would love to make a SMF mod!), whereas with manual acceptance at least it's split across multiple people.

Do we currently require newly registered people to confirm their registration by logging into their email?

Also, did a quick look through the SMF mods... maybe this picture-based captcha would help? http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2965

[Willow]

I was suggesting as an immidiate fix, as yet another has come through, -until- we find a better alternative. Not for the long run, just for now x3

[Ryuukokoro]

Do we currently require newly registered people to confirm their registration by logging into their email?

Also, did a quick look through the SMF mods... maybe this picture-based captcha would help? http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=2965

As far as I'm aware, currently to make an account on Secundi you need to both confirm your registration by email AND respond to a letter based captcha. :\ These two things are not slowing the bots/spammers unfortunately. Dunno if a picture based one would help.

(I just tried it experimentally--I logged out of my account and then hit Register for a new account and I did see the letter-captcha thing, so that at least is still working.)

[jojo]

@Willow: Ah gotcha. I would agree with you wholeheartedly in that case, yes.

@Ryuu: Hmm I see. I wonder if we should try picture based captcha anyway, just to try it out? Computers have a much, much harder time interpreting the meaning of pictures than interpreting letters out of images.