Idea for captchas on PMs

Feature Requests Website Features
#1

So PM bots are an issue, we all know that.

A solution I was thinking of is simply adding a captcha you must answer for every X amount of messages sent.
However, to add on to this idea, It will force you to answer a captcha more often if you add a group link into the PM.

So for example, I respond to 100 legitimate replies to people, then I must answer a captcha. However, if I sent say 20 mesasges that have a group link, every 20 messages with a group link, I have to answer a captcha, that way groups spamming have to answer captcha’s more often then regular PMs. Maybe even use a Regex to look for not full group links, but say I put My/Groups.aspx?gid=979242 only, it will still be able to see that via regular expression.

What if people just put the group id?
Sure they can do that, but most kids probably won’t bother taking the time to put the group id in, so it does have an effect on PM botters, reducing the effectiveness of the bots.

“Just put your PMs to Followers only”
That won’t solve the problem, plus, I need my PM’s open to everyone so people can ask for help, give me suggestions, bug reports, etc. Plus, bots are probably going to automatically follow you soon anyway, it won’t be that hard to auto follow.

“I am not receiving any PM bots??”
Try turning your PMs on to everyone, then play phantom forces for an hour or two, you’ll get spammed.

People are even using it for their youtube, and now asking people to send trades to their friend.

Just put reCAPTCHA on everything
Game Comments revamped
Wow! Just won 3000 robux! (recaptcha request)
#2

Yeah, I totally agree with this.

Possibly also be forced to captcha if the account is less than 90 days old or has not verified an email?
This will encourage new users to verify their email, and will also stop phishing messages with accounts that are a few hours old.

#3

[quote] Yeah, I totally agree with this.

Possibly also be forced to captcha if the account is less than 90 days old or has not verified an email?
This will encourage new users to verify their email, and will also stop phishing messages with accounts that are a few hours old. [/quote]
Yeah, maybe even change the limits for unverified accounts, that way it will reduce people just making a ton of alts to PM bot.

#4

Here’s some proof for anybody who doesn’t want to play Phantom Forces for an hour.

Image

That’s in 31 minutes of playing.

#5

I’m fairly certain that they’re not bypassing the PM limit filter because instead of having your inbox instantly spammed with 100 recruitment PMs you only get a couple over the course of half an hour (that doesn’t mean they’re any less annoying though). Because they’re not sending these often (it only seems like they are because of the collective amount of groups doing it), a captcha wouldn’t do much good. All they have to do is have their PM bot prompt them with the captcha every 20 PMs and then they get around it.