Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Please suggest a new anti-spammer question for HoL sign-up

About six months ago it seemed like we were getting more and more spammers leaving annoying messages on people's member pages. With the thought in mind that this must be very annoying for members and that ultimately if people keep getting spammed they'll quit the site, I decided to add yet another barrier to the sign-up process. This time I added a question. Since it seems that the spammers were coming from the US and Africa, I went for something that I thought most people who live here would know or could easily find out, but that wouldn't be known by people who live abroad. I've also offered the opportunity for people who want to sign-up but don't know the answer to email us and ask for the answer.

The question is:

Name the most famous sci-fi 'doctor' on British TV

Since that question went up we've had no spammers at all, but are still getting 30 - 40 sign-ups each week. I'm sure that some people are excluded, but I've figured that 's a price worth paying for the health of the site.

Yesterday an email from a site member pointed out that non-English Harringaeites may not know the answer. I'm quiet happy to change it. Any suggestions? The criteria the question needs to meet:

Answer likley to be know to those who live in the UK, but less likely to be known to the spammer brigade who tend to live overseas.
Not so local that it keeps non-Harringaeites out (for example the person who sent me the mail yesterday pointed out that she found HoL a very useful resource looking at the area before she moved here).
A short and simple answer, preferably one or at most two words with the minimum number of variants.

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Permalink Reply by Pip on February 27, 2011 at 12:32

I guess any spammer who's really keen would just google the answer so this is just to keep out the majority who'll look for an easier target?

How about trying a London specific question, the majority of people who are wanting to join will either already be in London or if they are from outside the area, are probably likely to know a bit about London anyway. So here goes:

- what's the name of the free morning paper you can pick up on the tube?

- what's the London underground railway network known as?

- where does the Queen live?

- where does the PM live? (although there would be potential variations on that)

- what public service has its headquarters at New Scotland Yard (although, thinking about it... spammers might know this one!)

Turnpike Lane is on what tube line?

Or a English one:

- what Britih alcoholic drink is made of apples?

Hope that's helpful

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Permalink Reply by alistairj on February 27, 2011 at 12:47

Does ning offer a CAPTCHA option (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAPTCHA)? (Or do we suspect humans going through every site on ning in sequence?).

(If not, I can't think of anything better than your option - cultural references in a 'multicultural society' can be difficult but it is difficult to watch tv in this country without being aware of that show. It is quite popular in the US though... ).

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on February 27, 2011 at 13:29

Thanks guys.

You'd think spammer would just Google, but it seems their Google Buttons don't work. We've been 100% spammer free since we added the question. Strange isn't it.

We tried Captcha, Alistair. I think that's designed to stop spam-bots (computers set to spam) and it seemed to have no effect. I've always thought our spammers were human.

There are several good possibilities in your list, Pip. Perhaps we could rotate them.

Any more for any more?

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on February 27, 2011 at 13:52

The thing is a spammer won't want to waste time googling an answer to a question. As you also have the option to emails for the answer I don't think you're stopping any humans who want to be members of the site from signing up.

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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on February 27, 2011 at 18:12

I've tried Dr Jekyll, Dr Finlay, Dr Dolittle and a dozen others, and none of them will register me. Is it cos I'm Nigerian I'm excluded?

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Permalink Reply by Germana on February 27, 2011 at 20:24

Hi all,

I can confirm that as a foreigner I was unable to answer the question without asking someone first, despite having lived here for a very long time (approaching 15 years now) and being very integrated, I think. I am just not really into sci-fi nor into watching much TV so I would be unable to answer quite a few other TV related questions that may seem obvious to many. I can tell you for sure that other people who are not British will have the exact same problem - in fact I have been told this by people who have been unable to join when they tried (I was the one who emailed Hugh about it).

It's true that if a human is really keen to join they can go and ask someone, call someone, etc and try again. And that keeping spammers out is a very high priority. But perhaps we could try some other options to avoid a situation where people living around here but not so aware of cultural references may feel put off or simply have to waste time.

I like Pip's London specific ones, particularly the first one. I think a spammer from another part of the world is not so likely to know that, and of course they could google, but that does not seem to be how they operate. We could try, and if the spam goes up then we can rethink?

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Permalink Reply by Malcolm on February 28, 2011 at 20:32

How about "what is the name of the main shopping street in Harringay".

It's local, but doesn't exclude anyone who is even marginally interested in the area.

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Permalink Reply by Danzigger on March 1, 2011 at 14:35

Could you ask the prospective Harringaeite to name a pictured London Landmark - the London Eye for example. It's very difficult to google a picture, but anyone who's spent any time in London would know The Eye, or The Gherkin, Tower Bridge etc