[The E]

Seems there's been an upsurge in bot activity lately. Can anything be done about that?

[Fury]

Not much. Except possibly upgrading to SMF 2.0 RC4 and enabling CAPTCHA for first three posts. Assuming of course that there isn't someone who's willing to bypass CAPTCHAs manually or that CAPTCHA hasn't been broken.

[pecenipicek]

or getting one or two mods for the damned thing...

[Galemp]

It's far from being out of control. I got two email notifications the other day, and by the time I had checked it out another moderator had resolved the issue. I think we're just fine.

[TopAce]

Bots?

Where?

[headdie]

I flagged one yesterday but that's all I have seen for a good month or more

[General Battuta]

Bots?

Where?

Lots. We delete their posts very rapidly.

There have been quite a few in the past couple days.

[Lucika]

http://www.bigbluecup.com/games.php?action=detail&id=1059

[Droid803]

What?

[Goober5000]

The problem is that board moderators only see the bots that appear on their board.  Global moderators and admins see every bot.  It's not uncommon for me to check my email one morning and find twelve reported posts from four or five different boards.  This is probably what The E was referring to, since he's a global mod.

I'll talk to rev_posix about upgrading to SMF 2.0 beta.

[General Battuta]

Just got another one a few minutes ago.

[NGTM-1R]

I'd say you could add more mods, or switch the mods around so that some of the boards have a more active moderating presence, but now that I consider it I don't think you have any surplus moderating material.

[The E]

It's not like it's that bad a problem. The issue is more that several bots managed to get through the captcha in a very short timeframe, which is never a good sign.

[pecenipicek]

or getting one or two mods for the damned thing...

just to avoid any confusion and angry glares, i meant mods, as in modifications, not moderators. the smf customisation site is full of em, mostly good/awesome ones.

[General Battuta]

I'm 99% sure that the existing global mods have caught every single bot within thirty seconds of posting. The issue is that it's annoying.

[karajorma]

Tell me about it. I must have deleted 6 or 7 bots in the last week alone.

[Goober5000]

The problem is that not only do you have to delete the posts (which is easy, any moderator with access can do it) -- you also have to ban and delete the bot.  And that's something that 1) takes several clicks to accomplish; and 2) can only be done by an admin.

[karajorma]

Yep. That's the annoying bit.

[pecenipicek]

The problem is that not only do you have to delete the posts (which is easy, any moderator with access can do it) -- you also have to ban and delete the bot.  And that's something that 1) takes several clicks to accomplish; and 2) can only be done by an admin.

are you telling me that global mods cant ban?

[General Battuta]

Nope.