I changed it to ReCaptcha but I might need to update the version we have installed.

To whoever said that the signups were done by an automated system and not actual people: You would be surprised. It is much more common for cheap laborers to submit the forms than to use a bot to overcome the captcha. It's the same as people in China being paid 12 cents a day to farm gold in WOW, except this annoys me more directly.

How about deleting threads automatically who have japanese/rusian/etc. letters in the title/text?

Here's an idea:
Allow the report button to not be used to send messages, but to keep a count of how many reports are issued. members with low activity (0-5 posts) would not have any say in the reporting. Members who have higher but still low activity would have little say, and so forth. Once the report limit is reached (it would be reached by hitting a number of points). The tread will be removed and then sent to a moderator/admin. If it doesn't violate anything, they could put it back, but if it does, it would be permanently deleted.

since we've re-opened the signups and changed the captcha we've seen quite a lot less spam. Yes, there is still quite a lot but we can generally get rid of it in a few hours. as long as y'all don't click the spam links I think that we're in a pretty good state at the moment.

Just so you guys know

I understand what you guys are saying but not everyone that comes to this site is even a teen yet so they might think they a writing something that is not spam.

heck i did not even really know what spam was when I signed up here(which resulted in a few locked forums) but I did learn what is appropriate for posting thanks to reading other posts and from Lpfreaky90.( I was also about 13 when i signed up now i am 15)

I guess what I am saying is maybe at least tell the person that what they posted is spam and should be edited or deleted by them so that they learn not to do it again.

note. I do understand that there is a fine point to whats alright and whats not

Even when I was 8 I knew the difference between a scam and something genuine. My parents taught me well when it came to internet safety - however I did grow up with the internet being dial-up and with a lot less internet sites than there are now.

what about some portal/mapping related question at signup? people who come here probably know at least some things about the game and a very simple mapping question could be looked up by an absolute beginner, but it may discourage someone, who is only interested in spamming.

lord_blex wrote:
what about some portal/mapping related question at signup?

This has been suggested before? However not everyone that signs up is really after portal specific advice. That said: if they really wanted to sign up they can use google.

I say this is a good idea because I had to clean up 5-6 spam threads today.

ChickenMobile wrote:
lord_blex wrote:

what about some portal/mapping related question at signup?

This has been suggested before? However not everyone that signs up is really after portal specific advice. That said: if they really wanted to sign up they can use google.

I say this is a good idea because I had to clean up 5-6 spam threads today.

All in favour say Aye.

Hadn't there been something like this in the past? It was a long time ago, but I remember one Portal site signup asked for the name of GLaDOS's voice actor.

And how is it possible that the latest spam posts even contain the word "spam" repeteadly without being caught? >.< shouldn't there be sort of a checker for that?

Also, why don't you straightly forbid any post containing that damn store name 'M i c h a e l K o r s '?

EDIT: Lol, I didn't get it, you already automatically replaced that damn store name by the words 'spam spam spam' so that when anyone writes that name, it is replaced! (I edited the above post to enter spaces amongst each letter so it can be read :p)

yes; we noticed a lot of spam of a certain brand of handbags. (Chell is probably in dire need for one!)
with the replacement of that brand/store/whatever with "spam spam spam" we hope to discourage this spamming. hopefully with less spam as an end result.

There's a lot of spam for some kitchesn going on right now.

Chilius03 wrote:
There's a lot of spam for some kitchesn going on right now.

yeah a ton of kitchen spam I already have a kitchen
on to banning some more spam

Hey but I can reply to them and make jokes about spambots

Chilius03 wrote:
Hey but I can reply to them and make jokes about spambots

Guaranteed they wont reply unless you're willing to give 'em your credit card details.

oh those silly bots! they found "units" and "lighting" all over this website, and they assumed we meant "kitchen units with lights." next thing we'll get is probably going to be a spam bot advertising a motel based on the portal 2 intro or wood crafting tools based on "hammer"...

Lpfreaky90 wrote:
yes; we noticed a lot of spam of a certain brand of handbags. (Chell is probably in dire need for one!)
with the replacement of that brand/store/whatever with "spam spam spam" we hope to discourage this spamming. hopefully with less spam as an end result.

For some reason I cannot write or see.

But I can write

Halloween
Valentines day
St. Patrick's day
Easter

I wrote C h r i s t m a s and H a n u k k a h

radelite wrote:
Lpfreaky90 wrote:

yes; we noticed a lot of spam of a certain brand of handbags. (Chell is probably in dire need for one!)
with the replacement of that brand/store/whatever with "spam spam spam" we hope to discourage this spamming. hopefully with less spam as an end result.

For some reason I cannot write or see.

But I can write

Halloween
Valentines day
St. Patrick's day
Easter

I wrote C h r i s t m a s and H a n u k k a h

That is a filter in place by the forum. The joke is because of the website for Portal back in like 2008 I think. Just chill out, it's supposed to be funny.

npc_msleeper_boss wrote:
radelite wrote:

Lpfreaky90 wrote:

yes; we noticed a lot of spam of a certain brand of handbags. (Chell is probably in dire need for one!)
with the replacement of that brand/store/whatever with "spam spam spam" we hope to discourage this spamming. hopefully with less spam as an end result.

For some reason I cannot write or see.

But I can write

Halloween
Valentines day
St. Patrick's day
Easter

I wrote C h r i s t m a s and H a n u k k a h

That is a filter in place by the forum. The joke is because of the website for Portal back in like 2008 I think. Just chill out, it's supposed to be funny.

pretty sure that nobody likes the joke though... because the way that it is being carried out is like censorship. if the filter could be turned off by users who wanted to actually say the word,it would still be funny. but it's not. and now that it's 2014, 6 years after the fact, im pretty sure nobody cares about that website anymore.