...Really now, Escapist? I am disappoint.

[Something Amyss]

The captchas have nothing to do with making money. It's because the site was becoming a target for spambots.

These ones are annoying though, they're barely readable 90% of the time.

So they're replacing advertising we don't want with... advertising we don't want.

Fuck yeah.

Even better. They're replacing adverts I have never seen with adverts I now see several times a day.

I mean, I get WHY they say they put them up. But I'm yet to see spam bots on here, so it seems kind of dubious to protect me from them with even more advertising.

 

[Sassafrass]

Hmm, if I'm immune that's sort of cool but what about everyone else? D:

Ah, we'll live, it only takes a few extra seconds of our time anyway. The only problem I can see with it is if you're in a fast moving RP. Plus, the issue of the "reCapthca" system (I wasn't picked for that new fangled one so I get the old one.) saying you got it wrong when you know you got it right appears to be fixed, at least on my end.

Also, this post needed a captcha. I only get them in threads about it, too. XD

 

[Kae]

yes the are ridiculously annoying and it always takes me a few times to hit the right answer so most of the times I get annoyed and don't post!

 

[Scout Tactical]

The captchas have nothing to do with making money. It's because the site was becoming a target for spambots.

These ones are annoying though, they're barely readable 90% of the time.

My last captcha was ToyotaCare, and it had a background of a car, and it had a picture of a hand with a key being dropped into it. Are you sure you want to make that claim?

 

[nin_ninja]

Kinda annoying, especially for a forum.

 

[Weaver]

Some people need to join the Tech Team group and turn on chat notifications so that you have a clue what is going on with escapist.

You would know many things like:
-Why they implemented captchas in the 1st place.
-You would know that you'll only get one on your second post, one on your 10th, and then one every 20th post after that each day.
-They are testing the new captchas on about half the people while others are still getting the recaptcha because recaptcha has had issues with coming up with legible stuff.
-And much more!

Heres a link to the group, join it and be informed!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team

So instead of making and sticking a global and stickied post everyone will read, I was supposed to be reading this user group all along I never knew existed and never even speculated that it WOULD exist? That seems silly to me.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Once they brought in the Captchas, I thought 'Oh, this is odd, but I'll play along'. And it was good (or at least alright). I understand that they have to make money somehow, but these new ones are Captchas that double as advertisements. Maybe it's me, but mixing advertising and Captchas seems a little gauche, as now you have to type in some slogan or text about an exciting new offer or what have you.

Is anyone else getting these, or am I just going insane? Also, what are your thoughts on them, if you've shared my experience?

I'm getting them too. While I'm really bad at the original captchas and welcome the ease with which I can read the new ones, I do NOT welcome this kind of advertising.

Let me be clear that I have absolutely no problem with advertising pretty much anywhere on the site. I get to enjoy this community for free and I thank the people who provide it. If I could afford to contribute money directly, I would. Similarly, I don't mind the captchas too terribly (again, despite my own ineptitude at them) because I know they help the mod team.

But actually forcing me to look at advertisements and TYPE OUT brand and product names is too far. I get enough brand reinforcement seeing advertisements, I really don't need to be forced to pay attention to them and then have to WRITE THEM DOWN so as to more thoroughly soak them into my brain. To make matters worse, they're not even hiding the fact that they're advertisements AT ALL. If you click on them, you even go to a page on the product. These are banner ads that we're being forced to read closely and then forced to repeat and further commit to memory.

Escapist, I am disappoint.

 

[white_salad]

I didn't even realize there were captchas, shows how much I spend on this site.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

I don't really care...it takes like 2 seconds to type the word, and I don't pay attention to what it's advertising anyway..

 

[Canid117]

There were two spam bots that showed up before the catchpas honestly I would have given it a little more time to see if it got worse before taking the course of actions the mods did but its not my site so whatever. Not the end of the world.

 

[The-Bad-Blooded]

they had just began to be implemented when I joined...
they're so goddamn annoying! I post on two threads about completely different topics with less than 2 hours inbetween and allovasudden i'm a spammer? seriously?

 

[Fire Daemon]

I've noticed spam before, but it's never felt like such a large problem that captcha are needed. Obviously people are going to promote other threads over the spammers while a moderator silently takes care of them so it could be a larger problem than it appears, but I still can't believe that it's such a problem that people need a captcha for every 20th post to prove their humanity.

I would imagine that if a spambot managed to get past the original captcha when making it's account not much is going to stop it from getting past some others. I don't exactly understand the science behind it all so there is most certainly some valid reason for a captcha every 20th post, but the fact that they involve advertisements makes the entire thing seem really, really sneaky and cheap.

Ads keep the income coming in, and this site needs to make a profit, but forcing the ads on your client and making them interact with the ads while trying to justify their existence as anything but a profit making toll, well it's bound to piss some people off. I think that everyone is accepting of advertisement, but don't try and jerk people around pretending it's something else. They're bound to turn on you, people don't like being lied to.

I haven't seen one yet, and I'm not likely to because of my PubClub benefits, but I don't think that people deserve to be force fed ads just to enjoy the privilege of posting, especially when I browse this website while signed out and I notice that most of the banner ads are just for other Escapist shows. Why force ads on people in the form of captcha when you have plenty of advertisement space that you don't seem to be using?

But as I said, I haven't seen any of these yet. Maybe the company that provides them is the one that makes the profit, and The Escapist doesn't see a cent. Actually that seems likely, but may well not be the case. Either way though, it not working out the gate is pretty poor form from both the company that provides it and The Escapist for not checking them out enough. Nobody wants to sit down and fill out these things for hours on end, but someone has to do it I suppose.

 

[indiana_104]

i didn't notice any captchas...

edit: nevermind... i found em.

 

[neoontime]

Eh, they are easier to figure out for me.

 

[KefkaCultist]

Some people need to join the Tech Team group and turn on chat notifications so that you have a clue what is going on with escapist.

You would know many things like:
-Why they implemented captchas in the 1st place.
-You would know that you'll only get one on your second post, one on your 10th, and then one every 20th post after that each day.
-They are testing the new captchas on about half the people while others are still getting the recaptcha because recaptcha has had issues with coming up with legible stuff.
-And much more!

Heres a link to the group, join it and be informed!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team

So instead of making and sticking a global and stickied post everyone will read, I was supposed to be reading this user group all along I never knew existed and never even speculated that it WOULD exist? That seems silly to me.

There was a such a thread made but they didn't sticky it for some reason.

 

[Zenode]

I have 20/20 vision and i have trouble reading them....but i GUESS its for the best