I think we needs a spambot protecshun.

[spectre]

It is only a matter of time, as seen here, before we get a few buggers in, if the registration is not protected somehow.

To the admin - from my forum experience, the best two ways to protect a forum from these are as follows:
Add a register account feature for the admin. Ask the peple registeing to fill in as many parts of the form, to prove they are human. unfortunately, it means additional work for the admin, but is amost 100% proof.

Another is to add a tricky question to the registration form, for example a checked checkbox stating: I am a spambot (dear User, if you are not and wish to register, uncheck this before continuing)
This one is way better, and requires no admin attention.

(Problably you know about these things already, and I am simply overreactig... still.)

[Laukku]

I think it's only good that we make up things to make the forums better. Your suggestions were IMHO good.

Also the distortion-thingy could be made more distorted. Flipping it upside down, perhaps?

[Grey]

Since this has been said already I think it's about time one of us put it as an actual website development request...

[spectre]

Also the distortion-thingy could be made more distorted. Flipping it upside down, perhaps?

Please don't (-: Being colorblind I already find some of these hard to make out. On the other hand I already registered so what the...

Also, from my experience, the via e-mail account activation by the user has proven not to work on some of the bots, unfortunately.

[Alucard]

What has worked for me is twofold:

1) e-mail verification
2) a nonstandard question on the registration form: "Are you human?" or similar.

[sgeos]

2) a nonstandard question on the registration form: "Are you human?" or similar.

Agree. A few simple multiple choice questions do wonders.
"What is the Earth? A) a planet, B) a square, C) maybe, D) all of the above"
"What is ADOM? A) bean dip, B) yes, C) a game, D) all of the above"
"What is 2 + 2? A) no, B) a search engine, C) 4, D) all of the above"

-Brendan

[Grey]

An ADOM-related question would be nice, like "What is the opposite of order?" (chaos or evil would be acceptable answers) Wouldn't want it to be obscure for new players though...

[adom-admin]

Agree. A few simple multiple choice questions do wonders.
"What is the Earth? A) a planet, B) a square, C) maybe, D) all of the above"
"What is ADOM? A) bean dip, B) yes, C) a game, D) all of the above"
"What is 2 + 2? A) no, B) a search engine, C) 4, D) all of the above"

-Brendan

Do you know of any simple extension for vBulletin that does the trick? The bots really annoy me by now...

[sgeos]

Do you know of any simple extension for vBulletin that does the trick? The bots really annoy me by now...

Hang on, I'll see what the admin on another forum uses...

-Brendan

[Grey]

Do you know of any simple extension for vBulletin that does the trick? The bots really annoy me by now...

There's a detailed description here:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=205214

Should work fine since you're running v 3.6.8. The question and answer can be set to whatever you like.