Captcha is HORRIBLE!

[SteveB]

To whomever is responsible for these forums:

The captcha system used to recover a username/password is basically unusable in my opinion. One of the words is so mangled a human can't figure it out much less a computer. It took more than a dozen different captchas before I could get one right.

I tried a couple of the audio captchas to no avail as well.

Maybe it's just me and everyone else is a genius at captchas but if I have to use it again I'll go postal

My 2c.

[signals]

It is there for your protection and is hard to read, I agree--but it must be difficult to be effective. This is the first complaint about it that I remember in the 4+ years the forum has existed, but I am sure it has frustrated others.

[ゲゲゲの鬼太郎]

CAPTCHAs are deliberately designed this way because of the current problem of Bots
being able to actually read what is written in an image through OCR recognition.

Through the combination of OCR recognition and AI (artificial Intelligence), it is getting
harder and harder to prevent Bots from getting through.

But the downside to this is we still have the problem of Human Spammers from other
countries such as India and other places who will create accounts some of which they
may use right away and others which they will leave dormant as a sleeper account for
later use either by a human or by Bots.

signals.........

You might want to have a look at this article about a new form of CAPTCHA which
supposedly is easier to read and at the same time defeats Bots.

http://googleonlinesecurity.blogspot.com/2013/10/recaptcha-just-got-easier-but-only-if.html

This new type might just be better to use.

[SteveB]

For the record I completely understand the intent of captchas and the need to prevent bots/spammers from killing a site. I was just throwing out there that the current captcha system is so contorted that lots of people will really struggle to decipher it (ironically the bots may be *better* at reading it than humans at this point). Anyway if noone says anything it will never change. My hope would be that you guys would look into one of the many alternatives that could be as good or better at stopping bots while offering a far better user experience.

My personal favorite captcha alternative is from http://areyouahuman.com/ . Again, just my opinions - hopefully I won't need to reset my password again and see that dreaded captcha

[signals]

If you need to change it again, send me a PM if you can still log in or use the forum Contact Us and I will do it manually.

[frypan]

SteveB, you are not wrong about Captcha. They are universally despised from an accessibility and user interface point of view. There is a LOT of criticism in web production circles about the failure of Captcha in its role as evaluating users as bots or human, while providing users a reasonable way to proceed through the registration.

The new alternatives such as PlayCaptcha hopefully take on really soon across the internet. "Put the golf ball in the hole" and quick easy games like that are proving effective spam blockers. There is no need to make things difficult for users anymore. Google PLaycaptcha and give their demos a try.

Websites should be user friendly at every point. Installing difficult hurdles in the name of "defeating spam" is a step backwards to take a step forwards. It's a risk to make users angry or block their good intentions when they sign up or try to log in. It's all Human User Interface 101 stuff.