Pokemaster, I think we have a bot/spam account problem

Question

Hi Pokemaster,

I’d just like to inform you that recently, we’ve had an increase of bot and spam accounts. Sometimes they post a bunch of crap that gets filtered by the admin tab, and sometimes they just make accounts and post a load of crap in their profiles. Today, staff went though the new users list and banned about 20 accounts that were spam/bots and using proxy services. All and all they’re harmless, but it’s still annoying.

I’d like to propose some sort of captcha or “verification” to help filter out the spam accounts. Thanks!

Comments

Update: today we had a bot who posted literal gore in the chatroom and called the link a “cool free game” site

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I think that was just a troll.

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I think so too, but still worth mentioning as it is a spam account

Answer 1

For reference, here's a list of them. The oldest (that we found) goes back a few months ago, while the newest was made earlier today. So it's an ongoing problem, though perhaps not an urgent one given that they don't seem to be doing anything.
I've excluded ones that have spam links in their profile. I'll put those in a hidden comment below.

https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Evawls
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Evaatd
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/burskProow
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/burskvProow
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vikiwao
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vikifca
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Igoriut
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Igordpv
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Igorgsx
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Igormfr
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianaiyg
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianajig
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianarkg
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianaknz
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianamcq
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Vilianaumk
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlghb
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlfmb
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlhap
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlanasub
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlanayud
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlanamfl
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Svetlanajmc
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronaapq
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Julikfo
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Julirmh
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronacyi
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronaapq
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronajdm
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronaaxb
https://pokemondb.net/pokebase/user/Veronavod

Definitely looks like a bot given the name+random letters naming scheme that a lot of them use. A simple "I'm not a robot" captcha when signing up would probably weed these out.