Captcha!? Really?

[Jaime_Wolf]

I'm not a fan of Captcha as a spam-prevention tool. It's great for things you only have to do once like creating accounts and it's fine for things like downloads where a single access can be a pretty hefty amount of data wasted, but a lot of people post quite a lot.

Irony: I failed to post this the first time (ARGH first two times (THREE FUCKING TIMES)) thanks to getting the captcha wrong.

you can train bots to rate comments and posts.

That's sort of the point he's making.

I'm not sure I understand the justification given above either. If a bot were to create a large problem, then surely even a small cadre of moderators would be able to notice it and take action, no? Not that I'm arguing about the necessity (a more legible captcha system would be really nice though).

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Somehow it posted my second attempt despite the failed captcha...after my third attempt.

 

[Gudrests]

There were a couple of threads yesterday, started by a bot. I think it's fine this way, as long as the website registers the IP/Cookies of our browsers we only have to type in the Captcha once per day. So it's no biggie. Whatever keeps the site clean.

We get sporadic, but increasing bot activity. Right now we see a lot more of it in the registration section and the contact forms, so we're taking some preemptive action. The problem is that once a bot knows how to post on the forums, the controller can set it to do it whenever, and however much, they want. Like, for example, on a holiday or weekend when there's a lot fewer moderators and staff around.

Unfortunately, I can't just do it once per day, because a bot owner could do the captcha once manually and then let loose the bot right after. Most spammers wouldn't, but I can't discount the more malicious asshats out there (that may instead be posting shock porn, for example). So there are spot checks to limit how much damage an individual bot could do.

Technically, having a captcha on every post would be the "best" solution, but that's way too annoying. Hopefully what I've put in is a good balance between the two.

So its a random on weather or not we have to type in these awquard looking letters....eh thats not to bad.....as long as I dont have to see shock porn. 3 CHEERS FOR THE MODS HIP HIP. HORRAY..HIP HIP...aww screw it you guys get 1 and a half im going to sleep

 

[thublihnk]

BUY PANTIES for your BUTT! 1200% Real America wool! It make P3N_IS BIG for great sadness. You wife get hard at TEEN GIRL NAKED.

101111 NO RUSSIAN

victory at link! ww.google.com

Spoiler

loljk but yeah captcha's are weird. What's up, Escapist?

 

[Grey_Focks]

Hmm, I've noticed it a couple times now, and I really don't know why they're implementing it now. I've really yet to see much, if any, spam on this site to begin with. That, and I always have trouble reading those damn things... is that an "o" or a "0", dammit!?!?

EDIT- just read Virgil's post, didn't know there was any bot activity, but apparently there is. Oh well, if it keeps the bots out I'm okay with it.

 

[Dublin Solo]

BUY PANTIES for your BUTT! 1200% Real America wool! It make P3N_IS BIG for great sadness. You wife get hard at TEEN GIRL NAKED.

101111 NO RUSSIAN

victory at link! ww.google.com

Spoiler

loljk but yeah captcha's are weird. What's up, Escapist?

Walking a thin line, aren't ya?

 

[Danny Ocean]

Huh it seems to be gone already...

Yeah unfortunately there isn't currently, a spam detection filter can only go so far and spam will just keep changing to avoid it.

A captcha is really the only sure-fire way to stop bot spams.

Yeah, I've noticed that too. I feel like I jumped the gun a bit with this thread. It was everywhere, I posted, it was on half the threads I viewed, and now its gone. Strange...

Bah... I really hoped this site could stay captcha-free. I don't notice a lot of spam usually. Is it really that bad that we need the captcha?

There's a surprising amount, but I think it might also have the secondary beneficial effect of requiring people a certain amount of motivation to post. That way the level of quality might increase.

But really it takes less than 20 seconds. I think you seriously need to question what your technology and lifestyle are doing to your powers of patiences if you can't be bothered to hold yourself back for a mere few seconds.

 

[thublihnk]

BUY PANTIES for your BUTT! 1200% Real America wool! It make P3N_IS BIG for great sadness. You wife get hard at TEEN GIRL NAKED.

101111 NO RUSSIAN

victory at link! ww.google.com

Spoiler

loljk but yeah captcha's are weird. What's up, Escapist?

Walking a thin line, aren't ya?

That's how I live life...
*sunglasses*
ON THE EDGE.
*sued by EA for using the word 'Edge'*

 

[Caiti Voltaire]

I hate reCatchpa, and anyone that thinks using it clearly has never had to fuss with these things with a disability. I have an exceedingly difficult time reading the catchpas with my vision impairment. I usually have to listen to the audio catchpa. It doesn't always work. And it's difficult to tell how some of the words are spelt, since they're mostly nonsense words.

It was also published on Slashdot some time ago that catchpas only stop the most elementary robots with todays image recognition software being as it is, so what they think they're accomplishing with this, I don't know.

 

[Naheal]

Um... chill out. If I can type in Captcha on 4chan, you can type it out here.

 

[Plurralbles]

I just wish I didn't have to try multiple times because the first bold word is just so damn hard to read.

Boricohv shapes... Fuck you. Yep. DIdn't work.
Boiettedsure yep, there it goes.

 

[Sassafrass]

I'm not too bothered by these, I've only bumped into two since they were put in (One for posting a review, one for this post funnily enough.) and it's only an extra 5 or 10 seconds out of my time. Plus mine were both sorta readable and not too much of a problem.

Although if they include them in PM's too, I might be getting a little annoyed. I PM a lot and that would sort of being a kick in the teeth.

 

[Geekosaurus]

I'm posting this to test this captcha business. I don't like it.

EDIT: Oh, you don't have to do it every time. I still don't like it.

 

[Voodoomancer]

Well I honestly haven't seen any spam during the 1,5 years I've been here...

Same here, although at least they decided to use reCaptcha, which uses actual words, instead of the ever-annoying random letters method (s7rvawz)

 

[HK_01]

Wow, just noticed it. What the hell? I've been a member for well over a year and have over one and a half thousand posts, is there really a need to check if I'm a spammer or bot? I think they could exclude people who've been here for more than a month or so from this measure.

 

[Weaver]

It's funny because I barely noticed spam on this site at all.

Wow, just noticed it. What the hell? I've been a member for over a year and have over one and a half thousand posts, is there really a need to check if I'm a spammer or bot? I think they could exclude people who've been here for more than a month or so from this measure.

I think this is kind of the obvious solution lol. If I have 20 friends, have been here since april 2008 and over 5,000 post and am a member of tons of user groups I think I'm on the level. Some kind of heuristic to detect actual posters would be nice. Hell, if they have to use a whitelist I'd go for that too.

 

[nuba km]

ya I hate it because it never works on the first go for me.

 

[Dexiro]

I have started noticing a few spam bots very recently. Like yesterday someone made a topic about some movie I think and I noticed one post that was just a blatant advertisement for it.

 

[Starke]

Speaking of, this is try three.

2nd attempt, and I said this thing was mild?

Ha, I'm absolutely sure I typed it in correctly the first time, it still rejected it.

It often does the same thing on youtube. (Why do I keep posting there?)

I'm having the same problem.