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bbAntiSpam Forum Index - Textual Confirmation - FAQ: The best questions for the registration page

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mischa



Joined: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 11
Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:37 am    Post subject: FAQ: The best questions for the registration page  
Might be a good idea to start a topic where people post the questions that they ask their potential users. I think it's always good to look at others creativity Wink

My questions in addition to the standard ones:

Quote:
Are you a spambot?
What year is it?
What is 2 + 2?
What is 4 * 4?
What is the domain that the forum is hosted on?
admin
Site Admin


Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 805
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:38 am    Post subject:  
Quote:
Are you a spambot?

It seems yes/no questions are not very good. They are too easy for half-manual half-automatical spam registrations.
Quote:
What is 4 * 4?

I tried math formulas, but gave up. The problem is the additional "*" at the end that identifies the required field. The question string becomes "What is 4 * 4? *", which looks a bit confising.

At the moment, I recommend to use something like:
Quote:
What's the forum pass code (see <a href="faq.php">FAQ</a>)?

(Don't forget to edit faq.php to add the pass code.)

Meanwhile, Google already indexed some TC-protected forums.
mischa



Joined: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 11
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:49 am    Post subject:  
Good idea, the FAQ thing.
I didn't realize that I didn't have a robots.txt on this site. Let's see if that helps.
asuter



Joined: 29 Nov 2006
Posts: 9
Location: Fribourg, Switzerland
Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2006 11:12 am    Post subject:  
Great idea, BUT...

...hey mischa, are you writing spam software? I mean, if we collect all possible questions here (who knows), a spammer simply has to look at this topic and write down all the question-answer pairs.

DANGEROUS!!!!

By the way Wink, if you want to use math formulas, try to write them down in words: For example (2 * 2) becomes (two times two), (3 - 5) becomes (three minus five), and so on. Just an idea.

Greetings
Adrian
mischa



Joined: 13 Nov 2006
Posts: 11
Posted: Sat Dec 09, 2006 10:08 pm    Post subject:  
After I wrote the post I thought about the same... but I think using google to get the questions is probably easier.... Sad
admin
Site Admin


Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 805
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Posted: Mon Dec 11, 2006 3:50 am    Post subject:  
Quote:
a spammer simply has to look at this topic and write down all the question-answer pairs.

I hope the cost of adding such functionality outweights the benefits, therefore spammers will not implement it.
carolyn81



Joined: 22 Dec 2006
Posts: 2
Location: Washington, D.C.
Posted: Fri Dec 22, 2006 10:59 pm    Post subject:  
My questions, aside from the default "are you human" and "say hello" are:

- Pick a number from 1 through 9
- What letter does your first name begin with
- What year is it
- What month is it
- What is the hour

Any valid answer will work.
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admin
Site Admin


Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 805
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:11 am    Post subject:  
Recommendations from the phpBB.com forum:
Quote:

Just a thought. In order to ensure that a valid human user doesn't get denied because they lack information, you could include the answer as a statement within your question, and reference it (in a roundabout way). If at all possible, each statement should contain the possibility of at least two question/answers.

For instance:

Q: "Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow." What is the color of Mary's pet?
A: white
Q: "Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow." What is Mary's pet?
A: lamb

or

Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." What is Jonathan drinking?
A: tea
Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." What meal is Jonathan eating?
A: dinner
Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." Who is eating a meal??
A: Jonathan

These sorts of questions assume no prior knowlege on the part of the reader, but they do assume enough intelligence to infer an answer.

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Steve



Joined: 07 Apr 2007
Posts: 1
Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:22 pm    Post subject:  
I like this solution the best, but I added color to the correct answer in the statement.

admin wrote:
Recommendations from the phpBB.com forum:
Quote:

Just a thought. In order to ensure that a valid human user doesn't get denied because they lack information, you could include the answer as a statement within your question, and reference it (in a roundabout way). If at all possible, each statement should contain the possibility of at least two question/answers.

For instance:

Q: "Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow." What is the color of Mary's pet?
A: white
Q: "Mary had a little lamb, it's fleece was white as snow." What is Mary's pet?
A: lamb

or

Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." What is Jonathan drinking?
A: tea
Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." What meal is Jonathan eating?
A: dinner
Q: Jonathan said "I believe I would like tea with dinner." Who is eating a meal??
A: Jonathan

These sorts of questions assume no prior knowlege on the part of the reader, but they do assume enough intelligence to infer an answer.
Code:
admin
Site Admin


Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 805
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 3:44 am    Post subject:  
Unfortunately, the last post is corrupted. Steve, would you please correct it?
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hirzel75



Joined: 14 Dec 2007
Posts: 3
Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:09 am    Post subject:  
i think the best question could be the contextual one.

For example, in this pag3e, a good question could be:

Which is the second word, after creating, in the logo?

n other solutions, obviously, is asking something of very common or connected with the activity of the BB.

Example:

What's our president name?
What is the subject of this forum? (es. videogames)

Or something really stupid.

Which is the human's best friend?


Perrsonally, using my BB for University Community i ask about the building location, the informative rsources, our principal's name. It seeme to work! Smile

Luca


Luca
k72ndst



Joined: 13 Dec 2007
Posts: 5
Location: New York, NY, USA
Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 4:57 am    Post subject:  
I like Luca's idea a lot. I ask local sports questions. If you know the team, it helps to get the answer right!

Cool

kevin
http://nycbp.com
Itchy
Guest
Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 10:55 pm    Post subject:  
Its horses for courses

Im English and so my forum its only for the english ....so really i dont want anybody who cant read or speak english so for that forum the question are about England things that an english person would know Wink but for other forums id used questions based around the forum...... you can of course alway leave the answers to the question in the forum rules as this is the last place any self respecting spammer would be seen in
e.g

Q pinkbibble A well sure it is
Q jibberjabber A you what

so th TC would just show jibberjabber and the user would have to put in well sure it is
Just change the lang file telling user its a wise idea to read the forum rules 1st Wink
admin
Site Admin


Joined: 18 Apr 2006
Posts: 805
Location: Saint-Petersburg, Russia
Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 3:49 am    Post subject:  
Good idea and wonderful implementation: http://bbantispam.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2239#2239.
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Oleg Parashchenko, bbAntiSpam
Do you love our tools? Please sponsor further development!

Ok.