Tricking comment spam bots? (possible solution inside)

coeus

I see a lot of the image check system in a lot of forms as a way of anti-spam however I reciently saw an article on how those systems are tripping up blind web users (kinda ironic eh?) Anyway, I was wondering if any of you think that putting in some sort of radio button form question would work better...for example:

Are you a bot? (*)Yes ( )No

Purposely default to the wrong answer. Do you all think spam bots would be smart enough to decypher the question and check the other radio button? I have done this question on a website with a guestbook that recieves spam, sometimes a few days apart, sometimes several a day. I haven't recieved any spam on it since I have added it, although it has only been 3 days, so I am not 100% sure it will work yet.

What do you all think? I do realize that if this type of thing becomes widespread then bots will be programmed to answer it, but then you can make up different kind of questions...

Select ready: (*)not ( )ready

Maybe a pool of questions of different kinds? Maybe force the user to type in an answer so that the bots don't just do the form twice, one with each answer.

Type the word 'blue': ______

Animal

In theory, this type of system would work in reducing the amount of spam that gets through. As you know, it won't trick all bots and/or spammers, but what it will do is make the submission process different to a standard "default installation". Most spam bots are configured to use the most commonly used setups - on Wordpress blogs and phpBB forums for example, the default installations are most commonly used. It therefore makes sense for bot creators to target those.

You want to make it as easy as possible for genuine users to post, but as difficult as possible for spammers to post. I would suggest that setting up (say) 5 numbered radio buttons and adding text such as "Please select the second button and click submit" would be the most beneficial and easiest to implement anti-spam measure. But as I said: nothing is infallible.