Unable to register, apparently I am a bot

[anonymous]

I'm seeing myself being a little more active here, so I thought it would be a good idea to register an account. I find myself unable, apparently I'm a spam bot even though I've answered two captchas in a row. (I would bet that I actually answered them correctly, but that didn't help anything.)

This is the response I get:

Error: Submission rejected as potential spam BotScout says this is spam (Y|MULTI|IP|0|MAIL|0|NAME|6) SpamBayes determined spam probability of 97.34% StopForumSpam says this is spam (username [86.96])

Not sure how I'm supposed to defeat the gatekeeper to get an account. Any hints? :)

[Ryan J Ollos]

Thank you for reporting. We may need to adjust the karma of some spam services.

Could you please try again? I'll evaluate the log entries.

[anonymous]

Captcha image

[anonymous]

Ok, tried now, and got this:

• BotScout says this is spam (Y|MULTI|IP|1|MAIL|1|NAME|7)
• SpamBayes determined spam probability of 97.34%
• StopForumSpam says this is spam (username [86.96])

Together with an insanely large captcha image. (Looking at the source I can see it's very large because it's sized at width=33%, and I do have a really huge screen, so there's the explanation for that. :-) )

I solved the captcha, and was greeted with this:

Error: Submission rejected as potential spam

• BotScout says this is spam (Y|MULTI|IP|1|MAIL|1|NAME|7)
• SpamBayes determined spam probability of 97.34%
• StopForumSpam says this is spam (username [86.96])

I've attached the captcha image. My bot brain parsed it as zxkvxf, which apparently was wrong. It's strange, I feel that I have grasped most of the letters in the alphabet, but there's always room for personal improvement, I suppose. ;)

[anonymous]

I was wondering if @rjollos had a chance to evaluate the log entries?

I'm especially confused as @Yasha apparently managed to create an account yesterday, how did that happen?

[anonymous]

I tried to register again, using the exact same input as all previous times. Got a new response:

Warning: Are you human? If so, try harder!

Try what harder? I'm all for stopping bots, but would it be awful to at least give me a hint on how I fail to prove myself?

[anonymous]

I had missed the last dot in the verification phrase, so I corrected that and was rewarded with a captcha. I solved it correctly again (it's not very difficult) and was again deemed to be a bot. Why even show a captcha if it doesn't change anything when I solve it correctly?

So I tried again, with a different username. This time it worked without a hitch. Apparently the username Jefferson, that I tried to use, is very spammy? And the new one I used is not? That seems... strange.

[Duchamp]

So, bottom line, I managed to get an account here by changing my requested username from Jefferson to Duchamp. The former is considered very spammy, the latter not. Go figure. So formally this ticket can be closed.

That said, there seems to be several things in the registration process that can be improved.

[Ryan J Ollos]

Will leave this open to see if we can improve.

[anonymous]

How can I register keeps saying are u human try harder

[Duchamp]

Replying to anonymous:

How can I register keeps saying are u human try harder

Did you read the contents of this ticket? I solved it by choosing a different username. You might perhaps find that solution fruitful, also.

[Ryan J Ollos]

Replying to anonymous:

How can I register keeps saying are u human try harder

I can register you manually if you get in touch, see rjollos for contact info.

However, if you don't mind helping with the debugging, could you please try again? I'll check the logs and see about adjusting the karma on the spam services.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I don't have a strong understanding of the spam filtering settings and it's difficult to test.

[Ryan J Ollos]

I've adjusted karma and switch to keycaptcha. I can register as jefferson now. Please follow-up here if you still have trouble and I'll try to respond quickly.

[Duchamp]

Please follow-up here if you still have trouble

Oh, I have an account here since 8 months or so, so I don't have any problems. Glad you figured out a solution that probably works better though. Thanks for your work!