Spam can be prevented fairly easily using the honeypot method.
Whats this? Its an invisible HTML element which a bot can pick on fairly easily, but people not so much. So, what Scratch should do is include a page-color element which when pressed, treats it as an invalid request. Thats the thick of it for the honeypot method, and it can help minimize spam. This can be for posting a forum post, which it could be hidden somewhere. It can be for comments.
Of course, in case someone did accidentally press it, the ST could leave it at the action not going through. This is made even more effective by using client-side JavaScript to ensure that it wasn’t pressed.
To enforce it, they could also add an easily visible button next to the post button thats required to post it.
I asked ChatGPT to explain it in as few words as possible, aka, simplify it:

TL;DR wrote:

You can make a checkbox on the computer that can't be seen by people. Robots can see it, so they might press it. But if the button is pressed, it won't send any data to Scratch, so it stops robots from getting in.

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

A second, invisible ‘post’ button that does nothing. Bots know it's there and might try to use it, but you don't. It might work, but couldn't it be circumvented by the bot checking if the button is invisible?

rdococ wrote:

A second, invisible ‘post’ button that does nothing. Bots know it's there and might try to use it, but you don't. It might work, but couldn't it be circumvented by the bot checking if the button is invisible?

In theory, yes, but it will likely cut down on a good amount of spam.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website. I thought you meant manual spam.

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website. I thought you meant manual spam.

I’ve seen a good amount of botting, especially in places like Griffpatch’s profile.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website. I thought you meant manual spam.

I’ve seen a good amount of botting, especially in places like Griffpatch’s profile.

But how do you know they’re bots and not someone jsut manually doing it. I still support in case a bot IS used but I doubt many will be. I doubt botting is a big problem for ST but it still is an issue according to you

serialnumber404 wrote:

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website.

nothing could be further from the truth

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website. I thought you meant manual spam.

I’ve seen a good amount of botting, especially in places like Griffpatch’s profile.

But how do you know they’re bots and not someone jsut manually doing it

Unless someone spends 24 hours a day just posting comments, i doubt that they’re doing it manually.
Edit: Wasn’t there also a forumer who was the target of this? Multiple, in fact.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

serialnumber404 wrote:

Don’t understand anything you just said but support to prevent spam. Edit it so that it sounds like you’re trying to explain it to afive year old (because you are explaining it to 5 year olds in most cases on the forum)

Fair enough.
Think of it like this. In HTML, you can create a check box. This check box usually says “Yes. I am a human, and i read this.”
With the honeypot method, theres a checkbox, for example, which can NOT be seen by people, so thye won’t press it. However, a robot will see this, and think “Hey, this needs to be pressed”, thus clicking the box. Than, by running code on the browser, when the button is pressed, it does not send the data to Scratch, which helps prevent as much spam.

Bots are not commonly used on scratch to spam, I have never seen one and I doubt a troll would spend money and time renting, buying, or developing a bit just to spam on a kids coding website. I thought you meant manual spam.

I’ve seen a good amount of botting, especially in places like Griffpatch’s profile.

But how do you know they’re bots and not someone jsut manually doing it

Unless someone spends 24 hours a day just posting comments, i doubt that they’re doing it manually.

Ohhh

Support. I deal with spambots on @griffpatch's profile all the time and it just fills up peoples' messages. At this point, anything effectively minimizing spambots would help.

Kokonaroshi wrote:

Support. I deal with spambots on @griffpatch's profile all the time and it just fills up peoples' messages. At this point, anything effectively minimizing spambots would help.

Silent CAPTCHA’s are theoretically possible, but they do also require server side validation, which while not much processing power and often used to stop spam, the honeypot would work better IMO, and i think they’ve been suggested for comments before.

Good idea! The way I understood it: A fake checkbox that tricks the bot, and doesn't let it comment.

Elijah999999 wrote:

Good idea! The way I understood it: A fake checkbox that tricks the bot, and doesn't let it comment.

Right. Its a common way to combat spam IIRC, and designed to be unnoticeable.

How exactly would bots come to conclusions that they have to tick the checkbox to post?
Selenium comes to mind when I think of automation bots and you can make a script which simply doesn't tick the box

alwayspaytaxes wrote:

How exactly would bots come to conclusions that they have to tick the checkbox to post?

Many bots will ensure all elements are pressed, especially with the idea i added to the OP.

Why would ChatGPT give a good idea on how to combat spam?

I asked it to simplify what i had said, not asked it for ideas. “Explain it in as few words as possible” means “simplify this”, not “think for me”

I'm gonna try and put this into my own words so I understand it better.

This is suggesting that an invisible checkbox be added to prevent spam, and this checkmark would be here to trick robots into clicking it so their spam comments and forum posts won't send.

Support, It's a simple way to combat spam and it doesn't get in the user's way like, at all.