Upcoming Forum Captcha Change

[americancyclo]

can we get a way around the captcha for registered members over a certain post limit?

[mstone]

@Joe Chapline 42401 wrote:

When I log in as myself, the “Reply with Quote” link and “Reply to Thread” button both ask me a question, which is how it’s supposed to work. I don’t know. Maybe this would be a good time to have the latest version of the software installed, and see what’s fixed and what’s broken after that.

I like the forum community, but to be honest, this is some of the worst forum software I’ve used. I really miss basic features like “remember the things I’ve already read” which would make the experience of interacting with the site ever so much more pleasant.

[Joe Chapline]

@americancyclo 42403 wrote:

can we get a way around the captcha for registered members over a certain post limit?

There isn’t an automatic way to do it, as far as we know, but it can be done manually. It wouldn’t hurt to try the easy question-and-answer verification — it may not be a burden. All this time, admins have had to use reCAPTCHA to post anything, reading barely-legible letters and typing them in. THAT was a pain. We thought everyone had to do it, but it was just admins. The lack of complaints should have been a strong clue that it wasn’t working.

[rcannon100]

Now consider the fact that while imposing a small continuous burden on all members, captcha has been found by the security community to be ineffective.

Annoying Captcha security tests not even that effective, FierceCIO
You know those hair-pulling and eyeball-gouging Captcha tests that users are forced to decipher prior to signing up for new web services? Well, the word from researchers from Stanford University is that they are ineffective.

How Good are Humans at Solving CAPTCHAs? A Large Scale Evaluation Stanford Paper – Captchas are designed to be easy for humans but hard for machines. However the study found the opposite – they are easy for machines to crack and hard for humans

Text-based CAPTCHA Strengths and Weaknesses Stanford We carry out a systematic study of existing visual CAPTCHAs based on distorted characters that are augmented with anti-segmentation techniques. Applying a systematic evaluation methodology to 15 current CAPTCHA schemes from popular web sites , we find that 13 are vulnerable to automated attacks. Based on this evaluation, we identify a series of recommendations for CAPTCHA designers and attackers, and possible future directions for producing more reliable human/computer distinguishers.

The two captcha’s that they found strong were googles.

Time to Kill Off Captchas Scientific America Whenever there’s a problem in the modern world, we try to solve it by building barriers. Music piracy? Copy protection. Hacked Web sites? More complicated passwords.

Unfortunately, these barriers generally inconvenience the law-abiding citizen and do very little to impede the bad guys. Serious music pirates and Web hackers still find their way through.

[americancyclo]

I’m a bit concerned that having a captcha is going to deter users from posting. It makes me a bit more likely to just click ‘like’ rather than actually contribute to the conversations. I really enjoyed the “quick’ reply” feature and would hate to see the forum decline in use becuase of a speedbump to contribution.

Is the problem mainly with new account creation?
If so, what controls can be put in place for a new account?

If the worry is the hijacking of an established users account, what about timeout periods to automatically log users out?

Are there other options we can consider to limit the spam while encouraging authentic user generated content?

[mstone]

The only thing that works to keep spam out of a public forum is active maintenance. (The current team has been doing a great job.) If the workload is too high, the solution is probably to solicit more help–there just isn’t a technical fix to this problem.

[rcannon100]

I have run a forum on Internet policy for 15 years (Cybertelecom-l on Google Groups). I manually screen everyone who joins the group. Members can post freely without moderation. If anyone gets out of hand, they get booted. Over 15 years, I probably have booted 10 people (some of which will still come up to me and yell at me). A good moderator makes a good forum.

When someone asks to join my forum, they have to say who they are. I will usually do a quick scan based on email address or name – to verify who they are. I am looking for spammers, trolls, and children who dont play nicely (there are people out there who have been kicked off every policy forum and have a reputation of, well, not playing nicely with the other children). It takes a few moments, but the forum is vibrant.

And further agreeing with mstone here, there are now lots of very senior and venerable members of this bike forum who probably could volunteer to help moderate the forum. The only condition would have to be that those volunteers get free water bottles and bagels on bike to work day – hey! that might work!

[Dickie]

Complaints aside, I think the forum is a pretty marvelous place to waste time and be totally unproductive, even having to type in an answer is a better way to spend my morning than building some god-awful dining table for a client with no taste… I thank all the administrators for their hard work…

I do miss the quick reply button though

[pfunkallstar]

@Dickie 42422 wrote:

Complaints aside, I think the forum is a pretty marvelous place to waste time and be totally unproductive, even having to type in an answer is a better way to spend my morning than building some god-awful dining table for a client with no taste… I thank all the administrators for their hard work…

I do miss the quick reply button though

I don’t mean to be a curmudgeon, but this forum software is cantankerous enough without a random question captcha – it is like a healthy mix of Netscape Navigator 3.0, IRC, and MS Paint.

[americancyclo]

As an aside, I keep thinking this says Upcoming Forum Captcha Challenge, and I’m like, “Ooh! Another Challenge!”

[baiskeli]

I will be using a similar system to decide who shall pass the Junction.

[DismalScientist]

@baiskeli 42431 wrote:

I will be using a similar system to decide who shall pass the Junction.

What counts as being human?

[Dirt]

@DismalScientist 42435 wrote:

What counts as being human?

The guidelines must be fairly loose since I’m actually able to post.

[vvill]

I think it’s a bit silly to require random question answering on every reply. Spam happens sometimes, and the only way to get around it is with mods/admins.

Might as well require a user to login every time they visit the site.

[Tim Kelley]

Comments here are being monitored and hopefully we’ll come up with something that is satisfactory for everyone.

[Author]

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