Verification for new members

[Arantor]

I seem to be unable to find that 'specifically outlined' mod in this thread. Would you be so kind to point me to it? Given that my forum is not open for the public, I may just start over again, depending on what I think of this mod.

OK, that's my fault for getting confused between your two threads. It was specifically mentioned in the other of your threads, about trilingual registration.

As in: SMF already supports it, providing whichever agreement is available for the current language. So the problem is simply to choose a language, for which multiple solutions exist.

Well, it at least gives me, as a newbie, some ideas about what else could be possible in other situations. This is all a learning process, after all.

Perhaps, but I find from too much experience that it often hinders rather than helps. After all, you're primarily interested in anti-spam options for a multi-lingual forum. The nature of the beast is somewhat different on a single language forum.

It is, for example, the reason that this forum doesn't use anti spam Q&A.

I'm usually happy if 50% of what I write and 10% of what I say actually sticks with people. My experience is that getting mad about it usually doesn't help. It does help, however, to bring your message in an unambiguous way. A short message (requiring multiple later messages for clarification) is in the end more labour intensive than a single long message which says it all.

Yeah, about that. I'm a bit special in the mental department (prevailing theory is Aspergers), and there is a frequent disconnect between what's in my head and what gets to the post. I frequently think I've already explained something when I only explained it in my head.

But I also know that people invariably can't be arsed to read long messages here.

[Auke]

Anyway, I hope Auke will be able to determine the best path he would like to follow and I wish him the best of luck on his new forum.

And thank you for you help and wishes too!

Auke

[SatTrkr]

Sounds like you are a little angry at the world and are taking it out on us. Please have an open mind and let people have the freedom of speech to share their experiences and let the post originator take in all the information he receives and then selects the path he feels is most suitable for him.

Your remark about self promoting has no basis since there is no reason for me to promote my website or forum to Auke or anyone else. The general forum population here has access to a link to my website and can use it any time they want if they choose to do so. There is no need for me to promote my website or forum because one will need a lot of expensive equipment to use the software that I develop and the audience is a small population of users already established. Get your facts straight before you spew out statements like that.

Your last comment tells me that you are getting fed up with posting. Well, in that case, if no one is listening to you maybe it is time to move on, I have only been here this evening and look what has happened. I am trying to help and you are cutting down suggestions I am giving to a fellow user based on my experience without even knowing the details of the process that I have incorporated.

I am done with this thread and won't be responding any more and I know you will want the last word - have at it.

[SatTrkr]

Anyway, I hope Auke will be able to determine the best path he would like to follow and I wish him the best of luck on his new forum.

And thank you for you help and wishes too!

Auke

You are quite welcome. Take care and have a great evening (not sure of your time zone but it is 1:00 AM here in the morning).

[Auke]

OK, that's my fault for getting confused between your two threads. It was specifically mentioned in the other of your threads, about trilingual registration.

As in: SMF already supports it, providing whichever agreement is available for the current language. So the problem is simply to choose a language, for which multiple solutions exist.

But I also know that people invariably can't be arsed to read long messages here.

Well, provided it is decent English (and not something overflowing with spelling and grammatical errors) I most certainly can be arsed most of the time.

You are quite welcome. Take care and have a great evening (not sure of your time zone but it is 1:00 AM here in the morning).

Oops, 02:00 her in Suriname! Time to go to bed.

Auke

[Kindred]

Btw checking stop forum spam manually is a huge waste of your time... And also requirs you to manually check and approve members before they get into your site,,, which slows things down and means that you will lose at least 40% of your potential members from that delay   There are at least two mods that will  do that for you, one of which I already noted.

[SatTrkr]

Actually I don't mind doing the checks. I am retired and have a lot of free time. That tool has caught a lot of the spammers and bots. I am just starting out with these forums and that tool was recommended to me. My members do not mind waiting as I am moving my Yahoo Group over to the forum. They have to be a member to get my software for free so they do have an incentive to wait out the registration process. I have not had any complaints from the membership that have joined thus far so I guess with that it appears to be working and I feel confident that I have eliminated the spammers and bots from actually joining the forum. There are other contributing factors for why I am doing it this way but I won't go into that.

I will check the mod you mentioned to see if it will help me in any way. Thank you for mentioning that to me.

[Auke]

I've decided (for now) to skip the questions and stay with a CAPTCHA because it is more intuitive and thus doesn't require much explanation. I changed the default CAPTCHA for Arantor though, which I think is better readable.

On a sidenote, I saw some nifty CAPTCHAs with picture puzzles. I think it would be nice to have one like Peoplesign - Photo Captcha but with a questionmark on the place of the missing picture and with pictures of clearly compatible but very different signs, such as a chicken and a nest with eggs, a fly and a fly swatter, a pie and an oven etc. Even more difficult for bots, and no language required (no, I'm not making a request for such a CAPTCHA, at least not yet. And I do know by now there's a separate place for such requests).

Cheers,

Auke

[Arantor]

I changed the default CAPTCHA for Arantor though, which I think is better readable.

It was designed to be more readable than the usual SMF CAPTCHA and better able to defeat bots. I spent a long time figuring that stuff out.

The problem with picture puzzles is that they actually affect people in interesting ways. People with visual or motor impairments struggle with them in all kinds of ways.

[Auke]

It was designed to be more readable than the usual SMF CAPTCHA and better able to defeat bots. I spent a long time figuring that stuff out.

The problem with picture puzzles is that they actually affect people in interesting ways. People with visual or motor impairments struggle with them in all kinds of ways.

Yes, that's what de description said. The name of the author also rang a bell. ;-)

Well, there are some picture puzzles already. My idea might be an interesting addition. And of course, it's just something you only have to pass once. I just hope (but that actually concerns the other thread) that someone makes a mod for a multilingual intro. I think I'll put that one on the board with mod requests.

Cheers,

Auke

[Auke]

Just had another idea for a possible verification: what about a functional digital clock with varying questions like "what was the time 10 minutes ago?" or "how late will it be in 1 hour and 25 minutes?". Because it's a live clock, you could allow for an error margin of 1 minute both ways.
You could also put up several clocks with different times, asking something like "what was the time on the blue clock twentyfive minutes ago?".

I'm not asking for such a mod, I'm only wondering if it might work.

[Arantor]

Because experience suggests people will have trouble with it.

I've seen people get confused by "what is 5 - 8 = ?" and be adamant the answer is 3.

I have actually seen a mod like the one you're describing and it works but for the wrong reason. It only works because it's unique, as soon as sites start using it on any serious basis it suddenly becomes worth the bot author's time to break it - and this happened to the last one.

[Kindred]

Also... (And this is solved with multiple answers, but would be an issue for 2.0....)

What would you put for this time. 9 o'clock am --  9:00 or 09:00, or 0900? What about pm? 9:00 or 2100, or 21:00

[Auke]

I've seen people get confused by "what is 5 - 8 = ?" and be adamant the answer is 3.

I hope to get a slightly more educated public on my forum...

Also... (And this is solved with multiple answers, but would be an issue for 2.0....)

What would you put for this time. 9 o'clock am --  9:00 or 09:00, or 0900? What about pm? 9:00 or 2100, or 21:00

I'd go for 09:00 to make it not too difficult for people.


And how about a question like "how many apples?" with a picture of 7 bananas? (Trying to be creative... )

[Kindred]

Zero, 0, or none...
Nada, etc...

[Auke]

For a more specialized forum you could try something like "how many beetles?" and then showing 10 beetles + 5 true bugs. Of course the number of random answers can't get to high... Okay, idea discarded!

Just thought of yet another one      Horizontal black and white bands of equal width with white numbers overlying. The bands should move either up or down. If the bands move fast enough, the shape of the numbers will be very clear for humans, but (I hope) not for bots.

[Arantor]

If they move fast enough for that, it's likely to be bordering on close enough to be troublesome for those sensitive to epilepsy.

If you're going to do moving, you *have* to be slow about it. The speed in ArantorCaptcha is not even remotely accidental on that score.

[Auke]

And if they would move so fast that it's beyond the epilepsy trigger? Like the alternate black and white bands becoming a solid gray field?

[Arantor]

There is no way you're going to get it that fast. You need to be getting into the 100 frames per second territory to be completely safe and the GIF decoders simply don't like running that fast, even if the browser will let them anyway, and not all browsers adhere to GIF decoding rates the same anyway.

[Auke]

Ah, okay. You're the expert here, I'm not. How about very thin lines moving slowly? Such thin lines should already reveal most of the shape of the numbers without moving at all.