So I did some analysis and it looks like many bots are running rampant on the site and automatically saving rainforest.
This is almost an ingenious idea if it wasn’t for the fact that the ads on the site support how we purchase the rainforest. With bots, we don’t get ad revenue and therefore we can’t go and purchase the rainforest land.
Although it pains us to do this, we will have to put onesquarefoot.org on a temporary hiatus for a little while until we figure out how to deal w/ this botting, and to clean out the bots from the current rainforest totals. (you are most likely a bot if you’ve answered every question at least 4 times, for example)
I really appreciate all of the users and I’m sorry that we have to do this. We will keep the quiz functionality still online for people that want to play the quiz.
We hope to be back soon with a solution to solving this problem.
I am not a bot! I’m just a student who answers questions while my code is compiling or running. And that’s a lot of questions so far. I hope you don’t have to limit the contribution one user can make. That said, I wouldn’t be to bothered by a captcha every 100 questions or so.
That’s a bummer – I’ve been average about 100 square feet each day, just clicking in between other tasks. I’m pretty sure I’ve answered every question at least 4 times, but I’m not a bot! Anyway, I hope you get everything worked out – this is a great idea!
Well, I knew this would happen to you. However, mere quantity is not a good indicator. I’ve “saved” 50 sq. ft., which required answering a number of questions several times. I also submitted a couple of questions, figuring repetition was going to make things boring for others.
I can’t tell you how to clean out existing bot hits accurately, but I can suggest a way of preventing them. Add a capcha to the form (a capcha is an image with distorted numbers or letters on it.).
This will slow things down for users, but it should satisfy advertisers.
Your random question generator could stand some improvement, by the way. It should not ask the same question within say 10 or 20 of the last questions.
Congratulations on the site, by the way. The idea is excellent!
Why not just have us create accounts so that we have to register with an email and have some security letters for us to copy down in order to keep out bots but to ensure that the site works properly