As I'm sure many of you are aware, there have been a large amount of spambots that have infested the Psypoke forums lately. While the administration and moderation staff have been working diligently to ensure that these bots are banned and their posts deleted as soon as possible, there are still a couple of important notices we'd like to remind you all of.

1) IF YOU SEE A SPAMBOT, PLEASE REPORT IT - A spambot is certainly within the realm of an acceptable use of the report feature, and it makes things very convenient for the staff when it comes to finding and deleting these topics. The report button can be found at the lower-right hand corner of any individual post, in the shape of an upside-down triangle. In addition to this step, if possible you may want to connect to the Psypoke chatroom. There are plenty of administrators and moderators present at any given time who can take care of the spambot as soon as possible.

2) DO NOT FOLLOW ANY SPAMBOT LINKS - These spambots link to a variety of websites, which range from simple advertisements for products, to illegal activities such as child pornography. Many of these sites are also laden with viruses that can threaten the safety and privacy of your computer or personal accounts. For this reason, practice good judgement and do not go to any sites linked by a suspected spambot.

If you have any further questions, don't be afraid to ask.

I do know of some spambots, one of which is online right now. Theyre called playback bots. Theyll always come back. But, I have no access to report or to chats on my phone. Anyways, TuseUrgette and Joileswotte. Those two are really annoying.

I think we may need to increase our captcha security. Instead of naming an Elite, we could incorporate a visual-blur-style Captcha. It might help.

Hey I was randomly looking through this and saw this:


Maybe putting that back in will solve (some) problems? Or we could put back in the extremely annoying yet useful thing where you have to type the words in some picture where the words are completly distorted? Just some thoughts

You mean a "captcha".
I'm pretty sure they're already using that for registration (at least that was the case when I registered), but if they aren't, they should.

What would make registration more difficult for bots, yet not overcomplicate things for actual people? I know there's the Pokemon questionnaire, but that's not working (as you can tell). Something probably needs to be added...though as to what, I don't know.

Or honeypots. They are fields invisible to humans but SPAMbots see these and enter text in the field. Upon entering the text, it renders the registration void.

Theres this annoying spambot called sausuable that's posting bad stuff, and whenever it gets deleted it comes back. Can't we just ban it forever (and give it the Fails At Life rank or some other bad rank) and not delete it so it stops posting spam?

That might be the only way to fight playback bots. But... Nevermind.

Sorry for the double post, but can someone tell if this would be correct?
Although it is said that you cannot moderate the internet, would it be unconstitutional for the American government to bots illegal? I mean, come on, like anyone enjoys reading their posts that looks like a preschoolers. They already tried something similar (SOPA, anybody?).

Considering how many of them speak in runes I don't think there's anything an American law could do about it.

And, the thing of it is that we simply don't want governments touching the Internet. For better or for worse. This is a special place where anarchy can thrive.

True. I'm in a Digital Media class, and after SOPA was defeated, a friend brought up the next sopa, which is like... I cant remember the abbreviation, but its against child porn, so the government is already monitoring the internet more than they should, so why not do a few useful things? Just a thought.

Again, sorry for the double post.
It seems as though those bas***** are gone! Whatever the Admins did, it worked. There hasnt been a bot in a week.

AWWWW YEEAAA! They're gone for now
Well thank you mods or whoever solved this! Still, I hope they don't come back

And here's a weird foreign spambot I saw once (sorry for the poor quality):

No! No! No! No no no NO! D****T! Theyre back! I just reported one by the name of 'Affohyday'.

In case you didn't know yet, just wanted to let you know that the spambots are back, and have been hitting the trade forum in full force. Hopefully they'll be gone soon. ;~;

A week or so ago a whole barrage of them stormed in. I reported what I saw (maybe around ten...?), and they were taken care of quickly and efficiently. Most of them were advertising those satellite-sized headphones, what are they called, beats or something like that.

Spambots everywhere! They feed mainly on the trade forum, but they can sometimes be found in the other forums as well. I've made like 20 reports over the past 10 days! Why are they slipping through again?