Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on reducing signup friction

Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by jbay808 on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @11:43AM (#23168020)

I used to run a forum for an indie videogame with a small but passionate userbase. Unfortunately it was completely overrun by spambots to the point that moderators couldn't keep up and they drowned out the real posts. We had to shut it down.

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Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by RyJones on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @11:51AM (#23168126)

This is one of the reasons Begg Knives shut down his forums. We literally couldn't delete accounts fast enough.

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Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by ValentineC on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @06:58PM (#23172857)

When I used to manage web forums, I ask a hard question during signup and put the answer within the question itself (e.g. "hint: the answer is xxx").

This usually stops simple spam bots that are aimed at that particular off-the-shelf forum software.

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Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by AQuantized on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @12:09PM (#23168351)

Why not stop allowing registration except by manual whitelist? At least until the spammer lost interest.

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Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by detaro on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @12:26PM (#23168559)

Is that less friction than captchas?

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Re:Don’t require a user to be interested twice: lessons on r... by duxup on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @12:33PM (#23168630)

How would that work?

Manually approve someone who registers ... then discover they're a spam bot?

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