The question is how many people know about this forum and this thread dedicated to Freebitco.in? There might be some collateral damage amongst the 100k+ accounts that was deleted. Yes, if it was affective to block the bots, then I would say, GO FOR IT, but these bots are highly affective and adapt to challenges like that.
That's a fair point about the forum. Most people contact us via the form on the FAQ page. I don't know how many did that at the moment but I will do soon because I've been given a promotion and I'll be taking over all support not just here.
I just want to clarify that no accounts were deleted they were only blocked from using the faucet. The rest of the site continues to work for them and if they do get in contact with us they mostly get a second chance not abuse the faucet.
By the time the bots are stopped or the accounts blocked, the damage was already done. I think a better approach would be to disrupt the scripts or the processes that these bots rely on.
If that were technically possible we would, we've come to the conclusion (as have many other sites) that the only way to stop faucet abuse is to make it unprofitable for them by reducing what we give out to below their running costs.
Blocking accounts on mass like that disrupts them, causes them inconvenience, and means they probably take a bit of a financial hit on those accounts. It's not meant to be the solution in itself.