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Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

dangerousminds.net

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Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#3
In my experience simple, domain-specific CAPTCHAs work pretty well. They don't even need to include a frustrating image with hard-to-parse words. Just ask commenters a somewhat randomized question that any visitor to the site would be able to answer easily. It can be really, really simple - like for example asking them to enter the abbreviation for something:

> Whats the abbreviation commonly used for the Hypertext Transfer Protocol?

This weeds out bots (because they generally don't bother with site-specific stuff) and many trolls (because they are either to stupid or to lazy to go through this process).

Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#4
This seems to weaken the captcha for bots, since a simple Google search for (for instance) 'do you know we are going' completes the sentence. No need to defeat the obsfucated OCR test.

If the goal is to keep out some idiots (since these tests will admit 33-50% of idiots who can at least complete the OCR test but answer the question randomly) but permit moderately sophisticated bots, mission accomplished.

Providing more context to the captcha solution in general strikes me as helping the bots, even if it confounds idiots.

Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#6
post #3

In my experience simple, domain-specific CAPTCHAs work pretty well. They don't even need to include a frustrating image with hard-to-parse words. Just ask commenters a somewhat randomized question that any visitor to the site would be able to answer easily. It can be really, really simple - like for example asking them to enter the abbreviation for something: > Whats the abbreviation commonly used for the Hypertext T…

That would work well provided your site isn't a high traffic site.

Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#7
So, i can be a d*ck as long as i'm smart?

Edit: I'm disturbed by the amount of grammar nazi's here that think the quality of someone's grammar reflects their personality...

If the goal is to keep the conversation civilized, why not do something along the lines of "Doing X is a more nice thing to do".

Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#8

So, i can be a d*ck as long as i'm smart? Edit: I'm disturbed by the amount of grammar nazi's here that think the quality of someone's grammar reflects their personality... If the goal is to keep the conversation civilized, why not do something along the lines of "Doing X is a more nice thing to do".

I guess smart dicks are slightly better than stupid dicks?

Re: Captchas To Keep Idiots Out Of Comment Threads

#9
Am I to understand from the title that we are equating “poor spelling/grammar in English” with “idiot”? Or is there some more subtle mechanism at work, such as equating “can’t be bothered to stare at hard-to-read-text just to post lulz, wat?” with “idiot”?
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