Is bitcointalk being flooded with bots?
Yes. And shitposters/account farmers which might as well be bots because they contribute little to nothing here. I've suggested a few things to try combat this. All new accounts have to be manually verified by a staff member before their posts show up. Removing signatures completely from lower ranks until you've got at least one merit or achieved Member status etc. A a captcha for your first post or two.
All good ideas. Trouble with any 'get past this hurdle you're clean' captcha is that a human can sit and guide the bot until it's cleared those hurdles.
I think random captcha on all posts and possibly during a session for a considerable time would be needed to stop determined bot users...
As for shitposter/click farm style stuff, that probably requires a random human assessment of post quality somehow...
There are ways to get past any restriction, but it's about slowing the bots down or making them having to jump through a few more hoops whilst not annoying every other genuine user who just wants to post.
A a captcha for your first post or two.
I would like a captcha to have until someone become a member. Most of these spammers are newbies and Jr. Members.
This is too extreme in my opinion and would be very annoying. I think it should be at a minimum just their first post or two. Maybe up until Junior Member at most. People could be white-listed or purchase a Copper Membership to bypass them also.