CAPTCHA's...? :)

Hi gang,

Folks on the forums are complaining about Captcha's, it seems that now someone has to complete one every time they want to make a post - I was surprised to read about this, however I haven't been as "on the ball" as I probably should have been with some of the anti-spam measures that have been taken, so it's quite possible that I've missed it...? :)

The most vocal post has come from our beloved, always sober friend Queen Lynxana:

"queen lynxana, post: 37796" said:

P.S. how much longer do we have to keep doing this Captcha thing? This is a paid fandom web-site. I could understand a CAPTCHA if this was a free-to-use forum bulletin forum software, but this isn't. Isn't this what having new forum moderators were for? To weed out spam posts on their shift?

I don't like her attitude, and once again based on the way she's talking in the whole of that post (which is in the thread about Third Earth and Thundera in the new series) I think she's been drinking - however, I must admit that having to type a Captcha every time you want to make a forum post would be annoying, I don't know why they're not showing up for me...? :confused:

If someone wants to look into this I'd appreciate it, and I'll leave it to one of you guys to respond to our lynx friend! ;)

Take care... :)

What the heck is a "Captcha"? The only annoying thing I see, granted only slightly annoying, is the add on the website. But that isn't even in the forums.

Maybe the "Captcha" thing does not affect Admins and Mods? Is there a test account that has no elevated privileges? It might be good to see what the average user sees.

P.S. I'll PM Queen to see what is up. I don't get the feeling that was an off the wall post; good grammar, no major spelling issues, no profanity, and no high anger attitude...

Chris here...

"mcss aerocoupe, post: 37825" said:

What the heck is a "Captcha"? The only annoying thing I see, granted only slightly annoying, is the add on the website. But that isn't even in the forums.

Maybe the "Captcha" thing does not affect Admins and Mods? Is there a test account that has no elevated privileges? It might be good to see what the average user sees.

A "Captcha" is basically those things that you get on some secure websites where you have to type in a sequence of letters and / or numbers as they appear on the screen as a security measure - more info here: http://www.captcha.net/ . :)

They are a great "anti-spam" device, but my concern about them is that they also can discourage ordinary folks from partaking in using the forums as well... :(

Take care... :)

I PM'ed Queen to get more info. I asked her how often she gets them and whatnot. Hopefully she can shed some light on how common they are for established members. We'll see what comes of it.

Yeah, I don't have to enter anything to post a reply. May be the team is excluded from the captchas?

I'm assuming it's something MannyC has put on when he was altering settings and creating the established members user group. Yep it won't effect mods and admins.

Hopefully Manny will see this post and sort it :)

Just wanted to report that another member, indiabluespit, faced today the 'Captcha' problem too. here is a quote from his post :'Ha! i had to reset the captcha 8 times before something came up that i could actually read lol'
in the People with Thundercats tattoos thread

No reply from Queen yet. So no details to report.

ha, Chris you crack me up. Our always sober friend indeed lol!

I just ran across that thread/her post and got instantly irritated by the captcha whining. Her tone was rather off-putting. Um, the mods have lives and there's not enough time in anyone's life to clear out the sheer volume spam attacks. I wouldn't blame manny if he added that as another measure. We're running out of options. They can be annoying yes, but not sure it warranted that. :rolleyes:

/my two cents

Chris here...

"Purrsia, post: 38159" said:

ha, Chris you crack me up. Our always sober friend indeed lol!

I just ran across that thread/her post and got instantly irritated by the captcha whining. Her tone was rather off-putting. Um, the mods have lives and there's not enough time in anyone's life to clear out the sheer volume spam attacks. I wouldn't blame manny if he added that as another measure. We're running out of options. They can be annoying yes, but not sure it warranted that. :rolleyes:

/my two cents

In fairness she does actually have a point in that Captcha's are very annoying if you have to input one before you can do anything on a message board or whatever, so I understand her frustration - like you, I just don't like the tone of her post and her way of communicating said frustration. :(

Has she replied to anyone about the Captcha thing yet? If she hasn't responded to mcss aerocoupe's PM, then IMO she can't complain if the problem isn't resolved. ;)

Take care... :)

No PM response yet. I assume it got to her, I forgot to check to save a copy in my sent folder, so I have no proof that it actually was sent...

Yeah maybe it can be tweaked some so that user groups that include our veteran members can be spared the captcha as the mods are. Be nice to get her serious feedback on the frequency etc.

oh I just noticed this message from user bolowhip in my inbox:

Dear Purssia, please please PLEASe help me I've tried messaging Manny already but no reply. I'm having massive issues with the new anti spam check....basically everytime i type the words (and I've even resorted to the audio version) I get an error message upon pressing enter stating that what I've typed is too short and I need to lengthen it to at least 10 characters. Each time I try it there is more than 10 vharacters types, I've tried with spaces, without, tried numerous typed and audio ones and still nothing . I can t post, quote, create thread or anything! ( This don't seem to be affecting any1 else annoyingly!

oh boy, anyone got some ideas? I've never heard of this kind of captcha error regarding the length. I've written back to him letting him know we're working on it as I'm not sure what else to tell him at this point. Not sure mods have the clearance to fix this anyhow, but I'm hoping Manny will see this here soon :)

Sorry guys for the long delay...I actually just saw this post. I have fixed the captcha issue