Ad Based Captcha?

[CM156_v1legacy]

My, did I ever pick the right time to join the Pub Club...

I don't know how bad these things are, but perhaps they will change. Enough people bitching over Meebo got in removed.

 

[rayen020]

you know i've always thought of the escapist as PC gamer hangout. I mean yeah almost all of us own a console or three and i'm sure there are people here who play exclusively on console but the vast majority of us are steam downloading, minecraft crafting PC gamers. So nt only does this new captcha system somehow get more annoying it advertises something i don't want, don't like and am never going to buy.

in short; yes these new ad captchas are annoying.

 

[evilneko]

There is an option for an audio captcha, yes. It is just that, an option. Just like the video ad captcha.

 

[dalek sec]

I noticed them too and I hate them, I never thought I'd say this but "Bring back the fucking normal captchas!"

Agreed, I know they have to use those bloody things to keep from spam bots from posting here but these ad's are just annoying. I have no interest in xbox live or anything like that. D:

I understand the ad's are needed to keep the lights on and the place running but honestly.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

They said the captchas were just spam control, and now with ads? Bullshit on spam control. I never really saw bots before the captchas and never saw them after. If I have to keep watching ads to post on the forums I'll just leave the forums. I have no problem donating money to support something, or paying for extra features, but when they punish us for not paying them? Bye.

 

[evilneko]

Here's a pic of the corner of the SolveMedia (the ones with the video ad) captcha.

The middle button switches types of captcha. When I took this image it was already on the text captcha (in fact, it started on the text one), and would've switched to an audio one if I had clicked. Another click probably would've gotten me the video.

 

[Captainguy42]

Agreed captcha's and ads are a *****. In fact I got a pub club membership primarily because it's totally ad free, which reminds me of gentler time when I had first joined the escapist all the way back, two years ago. So if you hate ads as much as I do, twenty bucks is a pittance.

 

[boringanarchy]

I have to sit through the boyband ad too and I got to tell you, it's about the most annoying captcha I've ever seen. If I throw you 5 dollars will you make them go away please >.>

 

[Mannayz]

I never did mind the old captchas [one you figure out how to circumvent the blurry-bullshit, that is], but these new ad captchas, annoying in both categories of useless noise and trying-to-sell-me-shit, are seriously hindering my post speed. I'm not going to wait [color=#FF000]FIFTEEN SECONDS[/color] to finalize a post [color=#FF000]WHILE YOU TRY TO SELL ME SOMETHING.[/color]

...All of which "play xbox live"...

I've actually seen different captchas for the same ad. Like, instead of "Play XBox Live" I got "Now on Verizon".

 

[GrimHeaper]

Let me begin by saying that I understand the Escapist has to make money. Providing me with a Zero Punctuation, Unskippable, Feed Dump, and LRR ain't cheap, and I'm sympathetic to that.

That said, the brand new ad based captcha system is going beyond that. We already deal with banner ads all over the pages, whenever we watch a video we get to sit through (currently) a US Military recruitment ad (since we know game nerds like me totally want to go get shot at), an overlay for the game of the week (Duke Nukem recently), and little banner ads that display over the video for Verizon or some shit, but that's all fine (see above).
In addition to having to wait for 30 seconds for my video, and big ugly inefficient layout and a little popup (all bearable), we now have to watch this stupid boyband Xbox Live phone ad just to post on the forums? Really?

At least have the decency to change the message explaining that the captchas aren't there just "to prevent spam," they're there "because fuck you that's why!"

Captcha- play xbox live

/rant

I can't post a thread because of the new captcha whats up with that?

 

[SkinyJim]

Great, for those of us on capped internet quota's this means we're going to be paying for them to make us watch unskipable advertisements. I don't believe that making it so that the user must watch the video to access content is acceptable. Advertising is about luring, not trapping.

Fortunately I'm still getting text captcha's
"Wir Unityo

 

[aashell13]

It must be just US/North American users. I've gotten a new adcaptcha every time i've tried to post. some of them want me to watch a video ad, some don't.

SO: Dear Mods,
I understand that you make most of your money through ad space, but this is a bit much imho. Continued use of ad-based captchas will result in my grumbling and making angry faces at the monitor, and video-based adcaptchas will result in my not posting, and eventually probably not coming back. If you can live with that, more power to ya. if not, then change please?

Sincerely, Frustrated Rocketship.

 

[godofallu]

Honestly this isn't the only "the Escapist" website on the internet.

There are tons of videogame forums, and tons of videogame news sites. If you expect me to watch a video add to post, you expect too much. I already post on a ton of other forums, I can jump ship quite easily.

I didn't complain when you added banners all over the site slowing load times, I didn't complain when you added adds before videos. I didn't complain when you added the first capcha system either. I didn't even complain when you started shamelessly begging users to vote for you in the Webbys, and then bragged about it.

I do think this crossed the line however, and I hope enough traffic is lost that this decision is overturned. I also wouldn't mind if the person who thought this thing out was fired. I don't think that person's decision was defensible, as I would imagine the goodwill the Escapist currently holds is worth more than the few pennies you get each time you piss a user off.

 

[NormalityImpaired]

I've had to do the ad-captcha a couple of times already and i don't like it. Somehow figuring out the old-school ones made me feel a little smarter when i was done, not by much though.

 

[likalaruku]

My biggest problem with the new capcha ads is that they have audio; video-based ads on the net that talk to me make me want to break things, you hear me Blip.TV? ::fist shake::

 

[Low Key]

With traditional capchas, at least you're helping them make digital books, or something.

Wait what? Explain please, how does presenting me with text that is all blurry and weird make a book?

Well, its just recapcha, so I suppose I just misspoke there. But this is what I mean: http://www.google.com/recaptcha/learnmore

And yes, now I'm seeing them. This is severely unpleasant.

Checked with an alternate account. How very annoying >.<

*declines to plug the pub club lest flamers flame*

The tech team is trying out this new captcha system because recaptcha reportedly likes Greek and mathematics more than English but it didn't add another layer of ads. I guess that's what it will come down to. Will more people complain about this new captcha/ad system than they did about recaptcha? Is it worth impossible to type captchas in order to get rid of another spot for ads? I don't know.

The thing about Recaptcha is that you only need to spell one of the words properly, which is the security part. For the other word, you can put in anything you want. So if you get a captcha where one word is impossible to type, 99% chance that is the word you can type whatever you want for.

But I believe The Escapist is changing what kind of verification they have because Recaptcha was cracked [http://www.allspammedup.com/2011/01/google-recaptcha-cracked/]. It has nothing to do with the trick above, rather the inability of Google to use non-dictionary based words.

Edit: Ad based captcha is dicks.

Seriously, WTF is this dumb shit?

I don't give two fucks what Canon or Ron Howard are doing. How the hell should I know what the answer is?

 

[Korolev]

Of all the New Captcha's that I've seen, I've got no problems. Sure, some of them sound like marketing slogans, but that's the nature of a website, and at least I don't have to squint and stare at them to understand them. They're very comprehensible and easy to read.

I haven't seen any video-based Captchas, so I don't know what they're like. In any case, I don't think they're much of a problem. A very minor hassle. I'd rather them than a bunch of spam messages from spambots. I hate those spam messages so much.

 

[Idsertian]

I am somewhat disappointed about it. I can just barely remember when it was just banner ads. (That was ok, fairly standard) Then I was irritated by the pop-ups on the vids. (uh, wut?) Then the enforced ads. (wtf?) Now this. I understand that webspace and bandwidth etc aren't free, but there's such a thing as advertising overkill and this is it. Ok, the captcha ads don't happen often, but it's still annoying when it does and I'd rather not have to be forced to watch an ad just to post on a forum, free or otherwise. It's bad enough when I have to sit through 30 seconds of twaddle just to watch a four or five minute long video of a certain Australian based Brit ranting about videogames.