Way back in like October of 1873 we had a contest to coincide with purging spam user accounts from the site. Since spam was the impetus, we asked readers to say something funny to prove that they were human. There were 159 comments, so we got to see the elusive fat-gnome-on-fire gnome comment icon (sweet!), and many of those comments were quite funny.

Behind the scenes, the gnomes each voted for our favorites. In true gnomish fashion we disagreed entirely, necessitating a second round of voting. And to prove I’m human, I dilly-dallied about getting this article written. And here we are!

We have a weiner winner!

The winning comment, reproduced below for your amusement, was this one by Rickard Elimää:

Hi!

Long time reader, but never written anything. I’m just posting to let you know that I want my account deleted.

Rickard wins a $25 gift certificate to DriveThruRPG. Congratulations!

Many thanks to everyone who took the time to comment.

Math for gnerds

Before the purge (B.P.) Gnome Stew had 7,628 users, including many “users” named “vi4gr4peen.” After the purge (A.P.) we now have 2,648 users, rather fewer of whom are named vi4gr4peen, and one of whom might be you.

That number’s pretty insane, and I have no idea why spambots had such an easy time signing up for accounts. Our registration process was designed to be painless and simple yet still present a barrier to spammers, and while it was the former it didn’t do the latter. It does now! John has instituted some changes behind the scenes, spam account protection is now stronger, and we live and learn.

We like this community a lot, and we appreciate the time you spend reading and commenting on our articles. Thanks for putting up with this peculiar purge, and I’ll see you tomorrow with an actual article.