Fighting spammers

Pierre · 2013-06-09 11:07:37

If you have a better idea to effectively block spam here, let me know.

chulaluk · 2013-06-09 20:15:52

I'll admit ignorance when it comes to fighting spam, but wouldn't it be possible to use something that is easy to lookup? Like the population of Honolulu? Or the average snowfall of Chicago? Or heck, the first line of Dante's Divine Comedy would work also.

Or if you want to be a bit fun, ask what picture is the result of graphing y = .75x^(2/3) + sqrt(1-x^2) and y = .75x^(2/3) - sqrt(1 - x^2). All that is necessary is to copy/paste that into google.

I'm not sure these are effective suggestions, but all I'm suggesting is that surely there is something that would be easier.

ewaller · 2013-06-09 20:41:55

Chaulaluk:

First off, welcome to Arch Linux. Clearly, you did ultimately prevail
As a moderator, I assure you, I enjoy the lack of spam hereabouts.

BTW, this site emulates a machine running Linux in JavaScript. I believe it generates the correct hash.

jasonwryan · 2013-06-09 20:44:10

You are assuming that it is automated spam.

We were getting a lot of humans registering solely to pump the boards full of spam links. Introducing the question stopped that dead. There is very little incentive to make it easier for that scum to register and, relying on the amount of feedback we recieve about the difficulty of the question, little evidence that it is an undue inconvenience for the majority of genuine new registrants.

chulaluk · 2013-06-09 21:59:19

Obviously you feel quite strongly about it and it's also obviously your board to run as you wish.

My general experience with forums is that people very rarely change their opinions through discussion. It's actually a quite natural human tendency and speaks nothing at all about the validity of the opinions nor about the characters of the individuals engaged in the conversation (see the article "How facts backfire" in the Boston Globe. It summarizes some research by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler about how people actually become more entrenched in their beliefs when faced with contradictory facts. Pretty interesting stuff). I'm not trying to argue at all. I assure you of that. I just thought I'd offer my opinion as someone that does not have 1,000s of posts and may have forgotten what it's like to be new to the forum. I'm glad other new registrants have not experienced the same frustrating experience that I did. Of course, it's not exactly a representative sample since you have no information about the people that decided to seek answers elsewhere. Take my opinion for what you will - which may not be much

And by the way, I'm sure it must be extremely frustrating to try to deal with the spam issue. From what I can tell, you have struggled with how to deal with it and I'm glad you found a solution that works for you and the other members of this forum!!

Cheers!

@ewaller - thanks for the warm welcome. It's much appreciated.

jasonwryan · 2013-06-09 22:05:57

chulaluk wrote:

Of course, it's not exactly a representative sample since you have no information about the people that decided to seek answers elsewhere. Take my opinion for what you will - which may not be much

You are right; it is not a representative sample. Your opinion, because it is constructive and thoughtful, is welcome: I was just providing you some more context around how we ended up here.

azadian · 2013-11-15 09:49:52

When I want to register for the forum, I have to execute the fancy command with the sha256sum. This is fine if everything is working, but otherwise it can be a huge problem. If I'm having problems installing or configuring arch, or firefox, or X-server, then I probably won't be able to do the math. Thus the people who most need help, won't be able to get it. To make matters worse, there seems to be no way to contact the forums manager to get assistance.

Jellicent · 2013-11-15 09:55:52

They still can consult the IRC.

There's a reason for the registration question to be the way it is though.

azadian · 2013-11-15 12:04:09

Why should a fairly-fully-functional arch system be a prerequisite to registering for the forums? This excludes not only people trying to get their system installed, but also people who are interested in arch but want to ask a few questions before diving in.

karol · 2013-11-15 12:06:27

Please search the forum before posting, this has been already covered.
What makes you think you need a fully functional Arch to register on the forums? You can use a liveCD / liveUSB or e.g. http://bellard.org/jslinux/

Last edited by karol (2013-11-15 12:07:24)

Trilby · 2013-11-15 12:07:27

Please search before posting, this has been covered *many* times in the forums.

EDIT: Karol beat me to that point.

I will add, I can understand why you'd want to ask this question - I have more trouble understanding why you wouldn't check if an answer was already avaialble. Your other thread, too, has been covered ad naseum in the forums - don't make a habbit of this. If you need help understanding the available information, then by all means start a new thread. But don't start a new thread because you don't want to check whether there is information already available.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-11-15 12:09:56)

ewaller · 2013-11-15 16:50:36

Merging Threads

Arch Linux

#126 2013-06-09 11:07:37

Re: Fighting spammers

#127 2013-06-09 20:15:52

Re: Fighting spammers

#128 2013-06-09 20:41:55

Re: Fighting spammers

#129 2013-06-09 20:44:10

Re: Fighting spammers

#130 2013-06-09 21:59:19

Re: Fighting spammers

#131 2013-06-09 22:05:57

Re: Fighting spammers

#132 2013-11-15 09:49:52

Re: Fighting spammers

#133 2013-11-15 09:55:52

Re: Fighting spammers

#134 2013-11-15 12:04:09

Re: Fighting spammers

#135 2013-11-15 12:06:27

Re: Fighting spammers

#136 2013-11-15 12:07:27

Re: Fighting spammers

#137 2013-11-15 16:50:36

Re: Fighting spammers

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