Several users needed for a small test (no special skill needed)

[Uvadzucumi]

Many spam bot create first post with links to another resource. for my friends forum (phpbb) i write very simple script - automatically block user if founded links in first post. This stopped bots.

p.s. for registering in this forum i kill some time , forum search found this post and repeat search searched in current forum tree. post about girlfriend founded only after start search from root forum  directory.

[Duke]

@Flying Steel: np

As it stands, we have 4 new human users in 3 weeks and NO spam registrations. ==> this solution works.

Thanks for all the good ideas, but after all, we are not here to find the most sophisticated solution against spambots. We want to fix some ufoai bugs, right ?

[Grunty McOrtnok]

New user here. Took me about 5 minutes to find the password. No problem!

Nowwwwww, my suggestion for this game is: let us play the campaign as the Aliens and kick some human ass.

[geever]

Nowwwwww, my suggestion for this game is: let us play the campaign as the Aliens and kick some human ass.

It was suggested already, and might happen once... but not anytime in the near or mid future. That would basically mean of implementing a whole new campaign. In the current one the mechanics are not developed in too much depth for the aliens. Some events are just semi-random, their resources are "infinite" and so. So it is not just about switching sides...

-geever

[Aves Dominari]

As both a human and a new forum member, I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I would have never been able to answer the question without this thread. Seeing as it's at the top of the Discussion subforum and I read it out of curiosity, though, I suppose you could just consider it another way for humans to get in that a bot wouldn't understand.

[hszp]

Hi everyone! I've just registered to see if the name I found was the right one.

Love and kisses,
Anti-captcha Mecha-Robot

PS.: You only have a small hangar? Enlarge your bases! Order your Large Hangar now! http://goo.gl/i4NUmo 

[Karamel]

It took me several minutes, as searching Duke girlfriend in the search bar didn't return any result (Duke is also java-related, found the answer manualy). And a few more minute because the captcha is barely readable for a regular Human It think it must have chilled out more than one regular user.

The best anti-captcha I have tested (not so much) is to have a few random questions like the girlfriend question but easier to answer, like What the A of UFO AI stands for, what is the third word of this sentence, what is the name of the alien fighting organization, on which planet the game starts, which star gives us light during the day. Once a while a Human registers all the answers and some spam bot starts showing again, time to change the questions.

But I tested it on small forums. This one seems much more referenced and it may require to change the questions more frequently than once or twice a year.

[dmi3]

Hi,

I just registered and stumbled upon that question. The hint helps I think ... But also I lurked for long enough in this forum to read this thread.

[LordJeff]

Kind of a pain to register. And the engine won't accept "His right hand" for the girlfriend question.

[PapiSido]

No problem for me, just 1 false try since I tried to register before reading anything in the forum ( many forums do not allow this) The only point to check is that the coresponding thread remains high enough to be easily found: maybe mark it as sticky ?
And BTW, how can we trust anybody to defend us from alien invasion if unable to solve this introductory puzzle 
A completely newbie, just wanting to give UFOAI a try but unable to fire on the enemy I've located in skirmish mode ( Is this the second test ? )

[arielCo]

Whew! Took me ~45 min and almost gave up. Then I realized that Google's famed semantic search fails miserably to identify synonyms for “girlfriend” and decided browse the forum the dumb way. *hint*

So, +1 on making the answer to the question visible inside the game. Or in the README, so that someone who can't even start it can ask for help. Go figure if spamlings are dedicated enough to download the game for the answer.

See you in the forum & bug tracker!

[Leviathan]

I came here recently as a new user (great game, by the way) and would imagine my experience was much the same as many new users.

1)  I did not create an account until I had my first suggestion for a new feature occur to me, prompting me to want to join the forum.

2)  It took me approx 15 minutes to find the answer.  My only annoyance was hunting for which of the many categories within the forum to search through for your easter egg.

[Destructavator]

OK, here's my own take on the subject:

- I've already been registered in the forum (for years now...) so I didn't have to go through this new system, but I'm glad because I myself had a lot of trouble finding the answer to the question and could certainly imagine how much a pain in the a** it must be for new people who want to join.

- I would suggest, as mentioned already, having a question that has an answer in the download for the game, and *not* posted *anywhere* in the forum.  I don't know of any spam bot that could download the whole game and then extract the answer.
- I would also suggest having the answer in some quick-start or game manual that comes with the download, and *not* require actually starting the game, for the exact same reason already mentioned in the thread - In case someone has trouble starting the game and needs support in the first place.
- The answer to the question should not be a real name (of any person) or real word, because some spam-bots can still guess different random names and/or words, in some cases based upon an "educated guess" from other content and the language used on the website.
- The answer to such a challenge question should be provided in a image format in the download, not necessarily as hard to read as some captcha images, but just enough that a bot scanning downloadable files for the project wouldn't be able to easily scan and extract what they think might be the answer.
- Having a simple PDF or HTML quick-start guide included in the game download with the answer in an image would be very easy, it could be in a FAQ or part of the guide that tells how to join the community or ask for support in the forum.  Putting together such a guide would be very easy (If no one else volunteers, I'll do this part myself, I don't think it'll take long.)
- As a *secondary* measure, the answer to the question should be mentioned in the actual game main menu or somewhere when the player checks a help screen for support.  Either that or it could tell the player where to look to find it (such as "Please read the Quick-Start guide included in the game download for the answer to access the forum, under 'Support Options' or 'Getting involved in the game community'").

- I think something along these ideas would be reasonable, not be too much to expect of newcomers, and would be effective for fighting bots.

Many spam bot create first post with links to another resource. for my friends forum (phpbb) i write very simple script - automatically block user if founded links in first post. This stopped bots.

This is also a very good point, and not a bad idea IMO.  I would offer to do this part myself as well, except that I don't have the expertise for writing such a script, I only know how to code in primarily just C/C++, some Java, HTML, and Reaper JS script (mostly, I'm still learning Python and a few others).

[ShipIt]

This will just make people starting to complain about the need to download the game just for registering. And what about people playing older versions? Also, no way to change the password later on - once it is out in a release version of the game it´will basically be locked forever.

Sometimes I feel like laughing to dead about this topic. Doing a search about the keyword brings the answer up in the very first line. So what?

[anonymissimus]

I just registered. Ridiculously hard. If the topic where it's mentioned had disappeared among the older ones I for sure would've had no chance.