Ha ha, someone just posted on the Easter Eggs page trying to sell...easter eggs.

Darn. I removed pearl14344's thread (after deleting all of momo and Red's replies), but it seems they're an established user.

Does this established user thing depend on the amount of days they've been a member, or the amount of posts they've made? It seems like the former, although it should be the latter.

I know getting a goomod published makes one established, but there must be other either/or criteria as well.

Why thank you! But you're still spam. Sorry about this.

*SPLAT*

Spam!!!
http://goofans.com/user/11717

Every time there is spam, the mods have to clean up the robot juice off the floor.
but seriously, David Croft has to add one of those filters to remove it. not something too hard, like those word-images that you have to squint at, but a question like, "if two times 2 is four, what movie series has Darth Vader in it?" (something that will throw off the spam.) Maybe like 50 questions like it? "Minecraft includes mining, and c*r*a*f*ting. what is the full word with no asterisks (*) that is also in Minecraft?"

This is possible, but the problem is this: non-native-english speakers, or those who haven't heard of Star Wars (yes, they do exist) will have trouble. CAPTCHA is easy, simple, and multilingual. It's used widely, so even Japanese or Russian people will probably have used it or heard of it.

On the Thinking with Portals forum, they ask some easy questions about the game itself. "Who is the voice actor who sang Still Alive?" Ellen McLain. "The Space Core?" Nolan North. Et cetera.

So maybe we could ask a question about World of Goo, such as "What is the name of the company who made World of Goo?" Or "How many dimensions does that company exist in?" Any goo-fan should be know those, or be able to look them up.

what is the abbreviation of World Of Goo Corporation? is MOM or DAD a spam bot?is it 2dboy or 2dgirl? is world of goo an idie game?

Well, you wouldn't want to ask specific gameplay questions, because some people may not have gotten far/may not have even bought the game; just played the demo. Any questions asked should be googleable, and the answers should be fairly easy to find, and fairly forgiving. For example, Wolfire's forum asks what Wolfire's first game was. The two accepted answers are both "Lugaru" and "GLFighters", as both are technically correct. Though it does cause some confusion, having two right answers probably weeds out more spambots than just one.

Bottom line: Unfortunately, no matter what you do, there will be spam. Bit Blot's forums ask what year Aquaria was released, and there's tons of spam there. Asking the name of the first level or something may be a good idea, but the sheer fact of the matter is spam will get in no matter what you do. You don't want to ask stuff so hard that real people are deterred/can't get in, either.

Oh, the irony...spam on the page saying "we've appointed AP and Puggsoy moderators to deal with the new spam".

Lol'd.

I agree with MOM, the questions shouldn't give too much away and should be easily Googleable. We shouldn't have stuff like "is MOM a spambot" though, because I didn't even realise that before AP mentioned it a while ago, despite finishing the game .I've never been good at interpreting games though, and I was pretty inexperienced with spam back then. Other people would have a similar problem, so simple questions like "what sucks in gooballs at the end of a level?" or "who paints the signs?" would be better.

Whatever the case, these questions should be in images instead of text, similar to CAPTCHA. Otherwise some spambots might get away with copy-pasting into Google and then retrieving the most common result, or something like that.

Anyone with Google can figure it out if they have problems

Still, it could be deterring for new users. You don't want to deter people from joining the site to begin with.

SPLAT!

Some spam was pretending to be a new member. I was pretty excited until I saw the ads in its post and sig

may or may not be spam, though i think it is:
http://goofans.com/user/11762

Oh, I think I already destroyed that one. Was he advertising "Australia website design" and saying that dreams never come true?

yep. probably saw it a few seconds before you did, and posted here after you bann'd him

*charges ban-lazor*

ZZZZAAAAPPPP-BLAM-ZZZZAAAAPPPP!!!!

Two waves of spam came in, all over. Banned now.

http://goofans.com/user/11822
didn't even have to read the post, just had to look at the title and i knew it was spam.

http://goofans.com/user/11846
no thank you, i don't want any mother's day cards. but you can have... SOME BAHN HAMMWER!!!!

Banned. As well as the one advertising internet radio on the cursor-color-change mod.

Prepare the ban hammer!
http://goofans.com/user/11868

Ouch, I think today's flood of spam dented the ban hammer.

AP: we must get to bAHM HAMMERS R US!!!1!® and get it polished!
mom: but what will happen if they come while we are gone?
pugg: I'll fight then with my : BAK-UP HAMMER!!1!® while you two go to the store!
James walks in with a sandwich: Hey guys, What's up?
{a huge wave of spam comes in right when the cleaned hammer is taken in}
mom: I got this.
{with 1 swipe, the whole wave of spam goes to the Digita Abyss. mom walks off, puts the hammer back into it's pocket, and walks off.
Pugg: any one want another sand wich?
{everyone shrugs, then heads to the kitchen}

I want a sandwich!

http://goofans.com/user/11504

Is this a spam bot?

Probably, but until it posts we won't ban. The only time I've ever done it pre-emptively was when someone joined with the username CheapRolexWatches. When I looked at their email address, it was a ridiculously long string of numbers at gmail, which no human would ever type.

Wait... how do you see a member's email address?

You try megabanning them, then cancel.