The captcha should be a mini-game applet… solve the puzzle and you’re in 
See:
Yeah I get that… just having fun.
Now that we have permission to remove posts, there’s nothing stopping us from writing our own spam killing bots (SKB) so we don’t need a captcha or bother with extra server access.
e.g. SKB keeps a list of all verified members, it periodically checks posts on jgo, if it detects a new post by an unverified member (new member) it makes a post in that thread that links to a captcha (offsite), if that captcha is not verified within 24 hours, that member is black listed and all his posts are deleted by the SKB (and hit by a ban hammer?). Else if the captcha is verified that member is added to the white list and not annoyed again and the SKB will delete the captcha link post so as not to make a mess with links.
Just make sure the bot works though, wouldn’t want it going mad and deleting all the posts ;D
Nice idea, but we’d run into some problems:
- How to get that info? HTML-scraper? We’d have to manage the results into an external database too.
- Posting in that thread is easy, but 24 hour verification time is insanely long, if it is spam, and maybe a bit short, if it is a real user.
- As you point out: one bug can wipe the forum.
* Riven starts coding SKB
Update:
Oh… better to wipe the signature of new accounts! Way easier! Problem solved! Works most of the time! Yes! No! Maybe!
Update 2:
Maybe rewrite URLs in a post/signature, to a page that asks if you really want to visit page X: yes/no. (defaulting: no, using js timeout)
http://javagaming.cookie.org/exit.php?goto=[original_link]
If enough people say ‘no’, the URL (or poster) will be blacklisted automatically, using some obscure heuristic.
could use the rss feed (can set a pretty large limit) or you can check the new members page for changes.
cool idea to put verification link in the signature.
even putting a signature like "Are you human? " where clicking yes white lists the member. This alone should defeat most spam bots.
Also I could write a script that goes through my email looking for spam reports, goes to the link reported, and bans the person who made it if they have <50 posts (otherwise it’ll just delete the post). That seems like it would be more direct and easier.
That’s a little harsh, and a great way to get noobs banned. Don’t like a noob?, report them for spamming and they get auto banned 
Endolf
for the sake of completeness, what happens when ‘no’ is clicked ? :persecutioncomplex:
I’d say:
[ click here to confirm you are not a spambot ]
Wasn’t it all about automating the process, both for you and for us?
No, just for me. 
So you guys are actually able to ban users? If so, awesome!
I can’t
I guess that’s because I’m a lowly section mod, rather than a moderator. Even though I get notified about spam outside of the jinput forum section and can split the topics and delete them. Which is a horrid way of having to remove a single post.
Endolf
Looks like I can. I’m thinking one of our recent additions -and perhaps all of the other folk who share both his IP and keen interest in poker strategy- might be apt target to take the factory-fresh sheen off of this banhammer.
However, I suspect that banning these non-posting profiles will be fairly pointless. Is there a way to just delete the accounts without cluttering up the ban list?
I can confirm it works.
Why delete them? As there are no posts and Google is banned from JGO (hence not indexed), it does no harm to anybody.
Regarding Google being banned…
If you look at the ‘Ban List’ you can see 66.249.* (googlebot) being kicked dozens of times per day.
Any idea how to prevent that?
Hostname nickname hits
----
*googlebot.com full_ban_116 222,158
I expect that if I set the ban to ‘expired’ (shall I?), it will be banned automatically due to high hit frequency
why is google banned in the first place? can’t the frequency of the bot be controlled with a robots.txt file.
There is a wealth of good java gaming knowledge here that could be shared with the masses.
It would lead to more people visiting, helping the community grow and java gaming in general.
Chris could always just change robot.txt to tell search engines not to come through. That’s how you’re supposed to do it.
Also, @endolf and whoever else, if you can’t ban and think you should be able to, or if you feel you need moderation over more sections, etc., let me know and we can look into it. The rank of Banhammer was never explicitly given ban abilities, all I did was give that rank around and make all the banhammers mods of every single subforum. I have no idea why doing it one way or another allows banning or doesn’t - and why Endolf is a “section moderator.” I have no direct control over ban ability, or anything like that. My life would be oh so much easier if I could just make a “ranking,” give it permissions, and assign it to people. But naturally I can’t.
EDIT - kapta beat me to it about robots.txt.
I have much greater powers than ‘just a moderator’ :persecutioncomplex:
I can login to the [admin] tab and do… a lot of naughty stuff, if I wanted to.
Interesting. The only different I can think of is that I gave Banhammer red star images, which are called starsadmin.gif. Literally that’s it. 
I expired the Google-ban – we’ll see what happens. It could be that JGO will be a tad slower the following hours / days, as google plows through our chitchat.
In Personal Messages, I see 3 red stars (Banhammer), in my forum posts I see 5 green stars (Moderator). So much for a properly normalized database.