[Antrax]

I have a lot of experience with this type of issues, having ran other forums in the past.
The best solution was to use a simple quiz similar to what Vampyr was suggesting. How many different suits exist or how many cards in the deck, trivial for a human but require customized bot scripts to defeat which is normally not worth the operator's time. I just asked both communities to come up with questions, it's a lot less annoying for humans than captchas are and more difficult for bots to defeat due to reliance on specialized knowledge (in this case, Bridge).

Barring that, just de-standardizing your registration form often helps. Give all the form fields random names and move them around a bit, and if you want to feel extra safe you can change the prompts tot - instead of "Username" use "Nickname", etc. That again requires customization of the bot to BBO specifically, which goes against what bot operators aim for. It takes them a while to notice the bots fail on BBO and then when they adjust you can shift everything around again.
The down side to the second approach is that it can screw Google Analytics, which also relies on form fields having some logical names.

[barmar]

Antrax, on 2014-March-29, 22:26, said:

Barring that, just de-standardizing your registration form often helps. Give all the form fields random names and move them around a bit, and if you want to feel extra safe you can change the prompts tot - instead of "Username" use "Nickname", etc. That again requires customization of the bot to BBO specifically, which goes against what bot operators aim for. It takes them a while to notice the bots fail on BBO and then when they adjust you can shift everything around again.
The down side to the second approach is that it can screw Google Analytics, which also relies on form fields having some logical names.

The BBO registration form is a Flash app, not a normal web page. Are you talking about the forum login page? We're limited in how we can customize that, since it's part of the inVision app.

[hrothgar]

barmar, on 2014-March-30, 22:51, said:

The BBO registration form is a Flash app, not a normal web page. Are you talking about the forum login page? We're limited in how we can customize that, since it's part of the inVision app.

I would favor a requirement that posters need to play a certain number of boards over the last 6 months
Nothing that large (say, 10 or so would suffice)

I'd like to see this requirement applied to existing accounts as well as new ones.

[helene_t]

There are a few very good posters who almost never play online. I wouldn't like losing them. And there are probably people who for w/e reason use a different login when posting than when playing. Finally, there could be newcommers who want to ask a few questions before they start playing.

A quota of one post per 12 hours for the first 48 hours for new posters might be better. But I am not sure if it is worth the hassle.

[gwnn]

helene_t, on 2014-March-31, 04:40, said:

There are a few very good posters who almost never play online. I wouldn't like losing them. And there are probably people who for w/e reason use a different login when posting than when playing. Finally, there could be newcommers who want to ask a few questions before they start playing.

A quota of one post per 12 hours for the first 48 hours for new posters might be better. But I am not sure if it is worth the hassle.

A quota on creating threads could do the trick, too (of course, that would mean that the spam could move to replies but maybe not quite so annoying - replies are somehow easier to ignore than a bunch of new threads).

[lycier]

Unexpectedly, Spam are more and more rampant now, so it is time to take defensive action against it.

[Oof Arted]

1eyedjack, on 2014-March-29, 10:07, said:

yup . playing with new windows 8 tablet which seems to like double posting

Typical Blaming the Tools

[Fluffy]

I saw a documental about Denieal of service attacks and one of the first tools against them is to ban completelly traffic coming from a country where the spam is coming from, this is usually for a business that is not getting clients from where the attack is coming from, so this is not the perfect time to do it, but it is worth considering though.

A maximum rate is also worth considering, if a login can't create on a day more posts than he has (+1) then it willl do the trick, so the spam could only create 1 spam the first day, you can delete it in 1 day, and ban it. It will hardly harm anyone. If you are a newcomer you will hardly want to make more than 1 post.

[Bbradley62]

I like the 10 hands minimum, but I'd prefer to see eligibility be permanent.

[nige1]

I like:

• Vampyr's suggestion to include a basic bridge quiz as part of BBO registration -- a few randomly chosen simple questions.
• Rain's suggestion of email confirmation.
• Hrothgar's suggestion: to require members to play some hands on BBO, before being allowed to post
• Fluffy's suggrestion that members can make only one post on first login, two on the second, and so on -- allowing BBO to bar spammers before they really get going.
• Downgrading the killing of spammers from justifiable homicide to pest control
  

[gwnn]

Cutting a hand probably suffices for first offenders.

[hrothgar]

Maybe we're missing the obvious...

We need to hire someone to cast a black magic spell to destroy the spammers
If only we could find someone with the requisite skills.

[Antrax]

barmar, on 2014-March-30, 22:51, said:

The BBO registration form is a Flash app, not a normal web page.

Good point. That renders my point moot.
On the flip side, it means it'll be much easier for you guys to implement a quiz when registering. "Which card would win the trick" is probably enough.

[Vampyr]

nige1, on 2014-March-31, 09:27, said:

I like:

• Vampyr's suggestion to include a basic bridge quiz as part of BBO registration -- a few randomly chosen simple questions.
• Rain's suggestion of email confirmation.
• Hrothgar's suggestion: to require members to play some hands on BBO, before being allowed to post
• Fluffy's suggrestion that members can make only one post on first login, two on the second, and so on -- allowing BBO to bar spammers before they really get going.
• Downgrading the killing of spammers from justifiable homicide to pest control
  

I think that we would lose a lot of people if posters were required to play on BBO.

[Trinidad]

hrothgar, on 2014-March-31, 04:31, said:

I would favor a requirement that posters need to play a certain number of boards over the last 6 months
Nothing that large (say, 10 or so would suffice)

I'd like to see this requirement applied to existing accounts as well as new ones.

I am one of the people that Helene is talking about. A long, very long time ago, I used to play a reasonable amount on BBO. As I got a family, there were things in life that are more important than playing bridge on BBO. I got selective, I want high quality bridge, and as a result I don't play very often: Once or twice a month at the strongest club within a 45 minutes drive, and once or twice per year, I play a relatively high level national competition for "real bridge".

However, I do want to keep up with the latest developments in bridge, and I do have opinions (one of my weaker sides, I know). BBF is ideal for these last two. I wouldn't want to miss it.

Rik

[Vampyr]

Christ they just keep changing their usernames.

[32519]

You need the computer geeks to pick up the IP address of the spammers, and then block it. Problem solved.

[gwnn]

I'm beginning to think the messages might be fake. No one could have extensive knowledge of all of the (otherwise completely reputable/plausible) advertised skills. Black magic and statistical analysis of the lottery numbers?

[Antrax]

As an immediate work around, at least limit new topics by a user registered today to one every couple of minutes.

[broze]

I can't believe someone somewhere has to actually type out this rubbish.