[@kevinjohngallagher Member 16 years, 2 months ago]

Hi Korti,

The issue with captcha’s comes down to the fact that you’re asking users to prove they’re not spammers by a method only avalible to be answered by a percentage of your legitamate posters. It’s not their fault the software you chose (or, we’ve all chosen) can’t handle the spam.

The realism is, if you’re running 100 sites, you should have a moderation policy in place. With people/human moderators. No software system, ever in the history of the world, has stopped 100% of spam. Infact, none have even come close to catching 100% of spam.

It’s all about percentages, and putting systems in place to get the spam coming through down to a managable number. I agree that typing any 4 numbers into a box doesn’t take long or put people off, but that’s a massive over simplification.

Captcha’s don’t:

1) Make any difference to human spam

2) Work if the user is on an older browser

3) Work if the user has JavaScript turned off

4) Work is the user has Images turned off

5) Work on mobile devices (by and large)

6) Meet any accessability standards

7) look or work the same for people with sight issues. (and the audio captchas simply don’t work).

Work in RTL languages / displays

9) Work in non-latin based languages as default (arabic / manderin / cantonese)

10) Work without a mouse (if using a reCaptcha).

Percentage wise, that’s a HUGE HUGE HUGE percentage of the world right there.

As a Real World example: I’m currently onsite at a client’s campus running analystics and UX/IA for their new University enrolment system. Online enrolment is down just over 20% from this time last year (not a big worry), but failed registrations is up by over 400%. Number one reason: people failing the captcha.

Captcha instantly fixed it and I still get just as many emails from customers asking questions if not more

Maybe you’re getting more emails because people who are serious can’t use your form to post.

What about those that are serious, but after multiple attempts at using your captcha simply gave up.

I do not think an extra 10th of a second for a captcha code would make people go anywhere else

Its cool that you think that, but there is so much data out there that says otherwise.

We have almost 20 years of HCI data availible, and we know for a certainty that the percentage of users who complete registration/sign-in/posting drops at an alarming rate the longer the process goes on.

Have you ever noticed how captcha’s were everywhere in 2007, but are virtually no-where now?

I am in no way a “bad” moderator a busy one yes.

I don’t doubt that mate. Approx 100 sites? I couldn’t even begin to imagine.

Take Care.