Comments on: Comic Update: Boring in Five Easy Steps

By: Kyle Weems

Kyle Weems — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 03:16:45 +0000

@Michael – At the height of the spam, approximately 250/day. The filter catches most of it, but it was still a lot of junk landing in my data logs. After installing my “Yarrrr CAPTCHA” (brought to you by pirate robots), it’s dropped down to about 5/day. This is greatly desired by me, because the filter has in the past had a lot of false positives (especially from link-prone commentators like John Foliot or Manu Sporny). With less junk entering the filter, it’s way easier to spot anything that got in there incorrectly.

The catch, Michael, with the “no one solution that can help everyone” approach is that we need to go out of our way to help people who have increased obstacles to the Internet experience, rather than shrug and say “too bad”. It’s one thing for people to not like CAPTCHAs based on taste, but it’s not usually acceptable to accept a situation where they’ll prevent genuine people from being heard.

By: Michael Kozakewich

Michael Kozakewich — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:37:13 +0000

When posting to my blog (which is quite different from a tweet, I’ll admit), I subconciously try to publish at a time I think is best for my readers. To use something like that specifically in marketing, though, just reeks of manipulation. I’ve never liked marketing.
I’ll write out what I want to tweet, and then crush it down to half its length so it’ll fit in the 160 characters, but I never look at marketability in my words and phrases. The idea of ALLCAPS being good throws alarm bells. Combine that with the password hubbub and the blue links, and I’m left thoroughly confused.

Re: your captcha, I love how the buttons still have dimension even with images disabled (most sites will tell me to click something, and I have to modify the dom before I can click the button).
Frankly, though: There is no one solution that can help EVERYONE, besides the systematic annihilation of spammers. But then we’d be spam-nazis.
Also, how much spam do you normally get?

By: Kyle Weems

Kyle Weems — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:06:25 +0000

@Cliff: You definitely went well off topic, but thank you very much for the accessibility feedback on the CAPTCHA. The question does change from page-load to page-load, but the images do not currently rotate. It might be very worthwhile (if I kept this method) to do that.

Re: tabbing through the document to reach the image-links to click them, I had presumed (admittedly, in ignorance) that since the CAPTCHA came after text fields that they’d be tabbed too after the boxes were entered into. I’ll have to consider an alternative to that.

I admit, this CAPTCHA is primitive. It has, however, cut the amount of spam that Akismet needs to filter by almost 90%, so it’s also been helpful. I’d prefer, however, to not be preventing legitimate commentators. Although I agree that CAPTCHAs are rude, in a world of blog spam, even a basic checkpoint is a necessity after a certain amount of bots discover your site. I’ll definitely look at ways to improve this one based on feedback like yours, as well as less annoying CAPTCHAs such as your suggested Google Searches.

Actually, my first accessibility goal is to provide a text alternative to the comic, based on a suggestion I received from John Foliot. While doing that, I’ll try to improve this CAPTCHA in the process.

By: Cliff Tyllick

Cliff Tyllick — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:43:56 +0000

At least one blind person’s screen reader pronounced “sentience” just like “sentence,” so your faux CAPTCHA made no sense to her. And people with cognitive disabilities might just give up trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do — especially if they’re also blind. Finally, people who navigate with the keyboard have to tab through the entire page to get focus on the image you want them to click.

Bots, on the other hand, can click any one of the three images and have a 33 percent chance of getting through on the first try. And if your images and question don’t change between sessions, then once they have the right answer they can flood your site.

I will say this: This CAPTCHA is less annoying to me, a high-functioning, intelligent, sighted sentient being, than many others I have encountered.

But the bottom line is still that CAPTCHAs are just plain rude. The best ways to discern people from bots don’t annoy people but do frustrate bots. Google “WebAIM” and “CAPTCHA” and you should find them.

Oh, and great point about tweets.

Cheers!

By: Janae

Janae — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:56:30 +0000

@Todd You could say that the web itself has been inundated with those things. I still love it though!

And I have to admit, I still love twitter. As long as you monitor who you follow correctly, you won’t have to deal with spam.

And, well… if your friends start spamming, they’re your friends, right? Bonking them on top of the head shouldn’t hurt either of you too much.

By: Pat-Trip Dyspenzer

Pat-Trip Dyspenzer — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:30:19 +0000

But what if the medium *is* the massage? … Funny article, but I’m really posting to test the CAPTCHA-like item, which seems nicely accessible to a blind person such as moi-meme.

By: Chris O'Donnell

Chris O'Donnell — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:03:48 +0000

Amen.

By: Todd

Todd — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:44:13 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. Great post. I knew it wouldn’t be long before Twitter got inundated with “internet marketers”, “social media experts” and spammers. It’s lost its luster with me.