During the registration process, my response to the "Are you sure you're not a spambot?" question was "No", and yet my account is quite active. What was the deal with that, then?

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I'm guessing that the thing about that question is, it doesn't matter what you answer, since a spambot won't necessarily give any particular answer; and it's unfair to exclude someone who simply just isn't sure if they're a spambot or not!

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No, that's not it. I left that question unanswered and am active as well.

That's a fair point you mentioned, though. We shouldn't discriminate those not sure whether they are spambots or not. In fact, we should praise them, for they have reached a level of open-mindedness that we do not yet comprehend. It takes guts to admit that the answer isn't all that obvious at all. It takes an intelligent and brave man to ask the question "What if I too am a spambot?" How can we know what being a spambot feels like? How can we know what not being a spambot feels like? How can we be cocksure enough to claim that we know any of that at all? If, and that most probably is the case, spambots aren't aware of being in fact spambots, where does that leave us?

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Oh man, that's like what I said! Remember? In the post right above yours?



I figure that to be some fine figuring.


Awh man! I get it! Like 'weighing scales'! Man, you crazy...

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I agree.

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Number One, my figuring was flawed for I interpreted your post in a way that it would contribute to the thread by proposing a use for the question in the registration process. I assumed that by "doesn't matter what you answer" you meant "doesn't matter whether you answer yes or no", where we could theorise that spambots, not recognizing that particular question, would leave the question unanswered and therefore be recognised as spambots and blocked, making the question an actual obstacle for them and the security method valid.

If, actually, by "the thing about the question is..." you meant "the question serves no purpose at all", you are simply rephrasing the point of the original poster without aiding the thread with anything yourself. I thought higher of you, wayne-scales #1.

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Actually, if memory and visual perception along with the complex cognitive process of reading serves, what the original poster said was,



So, if it was a question: I answered it; if it wasn't: it was just as pointless and invalid as my answer; and my answer was only such because of the question. Wouldn't you agree, #3?

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Most certainly.

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So you decided to understand the original poster's question overliterally in a "- What's up? - The sky, lolz" manner rather than to deal with the serious problem at hand. What a failure of the wayne-scales series you are, and that goes to both of you. I told Father and he was not pleased. Not pleased at all.

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Pfft..! You're the one with the flawed figuring, since if you're directly asked a question, no answer is also a response ("Your silence will only incriminate you further, Mr. Simpson!")! That's why you're the one that Father raped! Go figure!

I suggest that either the original poster desist from making any more unanswerable threads, or you recognise the source of a problem before you respond and/or notice the lack of explication which was remedied with a reply.

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And this is exactly why you aren't allowed to play with Father's cloning device.

Just wait till Mother hears about it.

Gaaary!

Huh? The thread isn't unanswerable. There is an answer and it's "Thank you Mr ZimZimZimbaa from ZimZimZimlaand, you have spotted a flaw in our registration process that we, the Terra Arcanum admin bureau, have overlooked and will now, thanks to your awesomeness, be able to fix and for your contribution, we promote you to site admin." Get your facts straight.

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I highly doubt it was something overlooked rather than something whimsically superfluous; however, I'm open to contradiction on that point, by an admin.

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I laughed.

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Me too! Wow, WS, you sure are one smart cookie! I hope no-one contradicts you ever again!

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It's funnier when Muro does it.

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DARKFOOL, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

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Lacy: How did I fall in love with such a jerk like him? Why can't I ever meet a nice man?
Tom: You've met lots of nice men, Lacy. I'm a nice man. The biggest lie all of you women tell yourselves is that you like nice men, when, in fact, we bore you silly.
The trouble is, you tell this lie out loud and so damned often that some of us more gullible types hear it growing up and work hard to become nice men.
Well, from all the nice men in the world, Lacy, fuck you very much.

Which part of me realising my mistake of forgetting how you work and assuming you would actually try to be useful rather then write pointless posts was unclear? :sigh: I told Father to dispose of a failed prototype but no, let's leave him for spare parts, he said, and this is what happens.

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Am I to take this that it, in fact, is a security issue? If so, I was completely wrong, and will readily admit it; but let me then say, by way of apology (see what I did there?), that, in my ignorance of computer security, I relied on my good, old-fashioned common sense, which seemed to tell me that if this question could be left unanswered, and that is a security issue, it must be that it's supposed to prevent spambots from registering. The question above it, which takes the form 'What does it say about x in this (linked) article?', seemed to me to be of the same form insofar as it is a non-standard question which a spambot may not be able to interpret, and which does need an answer. Now, I don't understand how the question mentioned in the original post's not being answered is actually an issue, if the spambot can,

(1) Interpret this other question, which appear more complex
(2) Open the link to the post
(3) Interpret the post and extract the relevant information
(4) Return to the registration page and answer the question,

since, to complete the first part of this process, it must be able to interpret a non-standard question and give a typed (not a 'ticked') answer; and since the spambot can presumably tick boxes (which would be the point of the question's having need to be answered), and interpret non-standard questions, what further protection a necessary answer to that particular question (the original poster's mentioned one) would provide is beyond my level of understanding, currently. I honestly don't know, though!


Since you can presuppose what you did, in the first place, I assume that you could've presupposed what I've written above (which may be incorrect), and wish that you'd addressed that instead of just ignored it, or been open to the idea that perhaps you didn't really understand to what I was referring, both in the sense of your thinking that I, in fact, wasn't properly contributing to the thread as best I could, and in that you may have misunderstood my reference to (rather than admonishing of) your figuring.

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Oh, I'm sure you're right WS, I was talking about the halfling mantrain.

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Lacy: How did I fall in love with such a jerk like him? Why can't I ever meet a nice man?
Tom: You've met lots of nice men, Lacy. I'm a nice man. The biggest lie all of you women tell yourselves is that you like nice men, when, in fact, we bore you silly.
The trouble is, you tell this lie out loud and so damned often that some of us more gullible types hear it growing up and work hard to become nice men.
Well, from all the nice men in the world, Lacy, fuck you very much.

A security-related question which changes nothing at all no matter how it is dealt with is a waste of space and code and is pointless from the forum security's point of view. Now, I was sure that the forum masters are wiser than to do pointless things (in before standard "what a naive thing to think about admins" joke retort), so I decided to aid the cause with this thread and the helpful observation within.


Why thank you, we're having quite a good time in fact. Care to join? We could always use an exotic elven addition and give that good old "halflings and elves love each other" saying a new meaning.

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Actually, I didn't say I think you didn't contribute the best you could. I am able to believe that it was in fact the best you could. What I did point out was that your contribution was of no value.

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A security-related question which changes nothing at all? How is it related to security, then? Objectively? Subjectively? A waste of space and code? Isn't there enough to go around? Pointless from a forum security point of view? So?


Of course, if you thought that the admins are wiser than to do pointless things, and then proceeded to point out the question's pointlessness, you must have first assumed that it was supposed to have a point; that means that you'd also have to admit to either thinking that the admins' stupidity was so profound that they didn't see the futileness of this question as they were writing it, or that you just hadn't considered the possibility of its being simply a joke.


I actually thought of this while writing that; so to preserve my air of humility and say what I meant, I added the word 'properly', since I wouldn't imagine an actual contribution to be not a contribution to what it's contributing towards, by definition; i.e., when you say that my contribution was of no value, I don't see how this could be thought of as a contribution at all, since I can add zero to any number indefinitely without producing any difference, and as to contribute is to give, and to give is to give something rather than nothing.

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I assumed it was what it looked like = a security question and that it wasn't working because of an error in code. I considered the possibility that it was a joke but posted the observation in case it wasn't. I take it it wasn't obvious to all?

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