reCAPTCHA

[Creationist127]

Ok now I'm slightly confused are the bots getting past the reCAPTCHA? Or is something else happening

Tangential, but speaking of bots - don't reply to a bot's thread, just report it and move on. Getting rid of the reply is just extra work.

Oops, I've kinda been doing that... I didn't realize there was a report button until just now

[bernard]

I've noticed that SciOly's is just a simple I'm not a robot checkbox–how much harder is it to do the picture reCAPTCHAs? Are those more effective, or have they figured out how to bypass that, too?

My understanding is Google uses your browsing activity to evaluate the likelihood of a session being controlled by a human vs. robot. If you're reloading a page hundreds of times in a minute, it'll probably require additional authentication (e.g. selecting photos that fall in a category) but if your activity is reasonable for a human you might be prompted with only a check box.

They aren't bots. They are spam promoters. There's a human behind them. Bots post leave with default details. Human promoters place location, and that stuff and what not.

We examine spam accounts carefully and in cases where we believe a community member may be behind the posts, repeat offenses have lead to discussions with their school districts. We don't want the actions of a few members souring the experience of many others!

As always, your reports of spam posts are helpful and allow our moderators to catch spam in any corner of the Forums where it may end up.