It seems like a better solution to the idea of restricting forum posting to those who have already played games. At first I liked that idea, but then I remembered that we regularly get posts from upstanding members of the Diplomacy community that post in the Forum for some specific good reason and yet have no intention of ever playing a game here. Kestas recently posted on vDip, for instance.

I hope so, and hopefully the way it lets you click and check off territories you've clicked will let people trial and error it even if they can't connect the long territory name to the map name.

Anyway I've tested and deployed it, let's see how it goes

TheOverlord wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 05, 2023 6:16 am

Kinda just got into Diplo and in my first online games right now, but I have severe memory issue both short and long term, it would be basically impossible for me to remember the exact start of a specific nation. And I imagine it would also be hard for anyone even without memory issues that just got into diplo.

Wouldn't the admin email cover this rare edge case?

TheOverlord wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 05, 2023 6:16 am

Kinda just got into Diplo and in my first online games right now, but I have severe memory issue both short and long term, it would be basically impossible for me to remember the exact start of a specific nation. And I imagine it would also be hard for anyone even without memory issues that just got into diplo.

You could just look it up. It isn't exactly a memory test.

Kinda just got into Diplo and in my first online games right now, but I have severe memory issue both short and long term, it would be basically impossible for me to remember the exact start of a specific nation. And I imagine it would also be hard for anyone even without memory issues that just got into diplo.

BrianBaru wrote: ↑

Sat Aug 05, 2023 12:33 am

"and it means people who want to post on the forum but don't want to join a game for some legit reason"
The only legitimate reason for someone wanting to post without joining a game is to ask a question of the mechanics of the game or the mechanics of the site. You could have a "Ask a Question" forum site where new users could ask questions

True that would be better, but probably that forum would continue to get spammed.

Here's another idea that might work: The user has to select the default SCs of a random country. Apparently having site specific anti-bot challenges is the most effective measure according to the current phpBB anti-spam guidance, only issue I can see is if people have trouble using it e.g. on mobile devices

"and it means people who want to post on the forum but don't want to join a game for some legit reason"
The only legitimate reason for someone wanting to post without joining a game is to ask a question of the mechanics of the game or the mechanics of the site. You could have a "Ask a Question" forum site where new users could ask questions

Damn.. let's see.. looking at the list of banned users none of them joined games (except a couple non-bot bans which have joined loads of games), so I could make it so users can only post to the forum after they've joined a game.

This does add the risk that if they are humans or are targeting the site they'll start joining games, which is definitely not what we want, and it means people who want to post on the forum but don't want to join a game for some legit reason (though it's kind of hard to think of one) wouldn't be able to post.

Any thoughts on that?

I've always had in the back of my mind the Backstabbr approach which is to use a subreddit instead of a forum.. It'd be kind of neat to just go with CM's Discord and a subreddit, we could look at integrating it in to some extent, and I like the idea of tying user accounts here to reddit accounts for extra verification.

mafia kouncil coup when

Bonatogether wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 31, 2023 5:08 am

we should ban everything that's not a mafia thread

Agreed. As all users and games are not mafia threads, the site is hereby closed!

Bonatogether wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 31, 2023 5:08 am

we should ban everything that's not a mafia thread

Louie: Hey I thought you said Troy McClure was dead.

Fat Tony: No, what I said is that he sleeps with the fishes! You see...

Louie: Uh, Tony, please, no. I just ate a whole plate of dingamagoo.

we should ban everything that's not a mafia thread

BrianBaru wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 29, 2023 5:46 pm

"Honestly the best solution would probably just be not allowing users to post to the forum until several hours after they've signed up."
Maybe after they signed up for a game

Good idea!

"Honestly the best solution would probably just be not allowing users to post to the forum until several hours after they've signed up."
Maybe after they signed up for a game

Fully support ^. Between the blatant advertising bots and the "bumping old threads with chatGPT comments" bots, it seems like legitimate posts have become a minority on the forum? I'll repost something I already posted elsewhere:

As a relatively new user to the forum, it is depressing that on every single new post, I have to first check whether the poster is human or not (because half the time they're not). It makes me not even want to bother reading the new posts. Can something *please* be done about this problem?

BUMPING THIS THREAD

@Kestas - what are you guys doing about this?

You need to change the sign-up process to block these accounts from ever reaching the site.

Bumping this as clearly this is still a serious problem.

captainmeme wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 14, 2023 6:48 pm

It's okay grandad, we've got some lovely oil paintings for you to inspect over here

Genuine fake oil paintings, at that! Just like the genuine fake companionship of a robot!

It's okay grandad, we've got some lovely oil paintings for you to inspect over here

I saw a documentary the other day about a care home in this Japanese town, where most of the younger population had moved away to the big cities, in which the bickering elderly residents were kept occupied by various robots...

... not sure what brought that to mind...