Crappy validation code

[jrivett]

Congratulations on the worst account creation validation code mechanism I've ever seen! It took five tries to get it right. Of course, each time I had to re-enter my password twice. If your goal is to limit subscription by annoying the hell out of people, you're doing a great job. The main problem, besides the code being almost completely illegible, is that it is impossible to distinguish between upper and lower case for some letters. Please consider using some other mechanism or at least restrict it so that ambiguous characters are not used.

[mibias]

if you have joined theese forums just to say that ...

[size=0]i think you might be a candidate to the üb3r n00b prize... well... let that be up to you monthyphy[/size]

[trickfred]

If your goal is to limit subscription by annoying the hell out of people, you're doing a great job.

Apparently not quite good enough. ;D

[W31RD0]

if you have joined theese forums just to say that ...

[size=0]i think you might be a candidate to the üb3r n00b prize... well... let that be up to you monthyphy[/size]

couldn't have said it better myself. but I'm really looking forward to what Montyphy has to say on this subject.

[Montyphy]

I have to agree it can be difficult to see the captchas but NeoThermic has stated many times that he is working on improving it or at least looking for decent alternatives.

if you have joined theese forums just to say that ...

[size=0]i think you might be a candidate to the üb3r n00b prize... well... let that be up to you monthyphy[/size]

couldn't have said it better myself. but I'm really looking forward to what Montyphy has to say on this subject.

[size=0]However, I don't think this guy qualifies for the title of UB3R-N00b or deserves to be ranked along with mehrdad since he expression himself clearly and skillfully. Perhaps if all his posts are to just complain then he may qualify for the title of troll.[/size]

[skilletaudio]

Haha, at least you only have to do it once. But I will agree. I was so amazed at this forums captcha that I screenshotted it:


Trying to type that "in order" is an exercise in lateral thinking.

[bjrn]

I had incredible difficulty with the captcha here. I didn't know if I was supposed to write the letters as they appeared top to bottom, or left to right. And for some letters I had to guess if they were upper or lower case. I really don't know how these things are generated, but couldn't you make something that generated letters (perhaps not even as an image) and then have the instruction read something like "Type over the <colour> letters". Or "How many vowels in this sentence: <sentence>". Something that requires thinking, but takes a bit of the guesswork away.

[KingAl]

I agree that the validation is a little obscure, but keep in mind that what you have difficulty reading is absolutely impossible for bots to understand.

[Luk0r]

Hahaha. Best thread ever.

[jrivett]

Actually, I just remembered that I recently encountered a worse validation scheme: it was slightly easier to read than the ones on Introversion's forums, but you had to enter a code EVERY TIME YOU POSTED OR PREVIEWED. Gack!

If I only had to enter the captcha a few times that would be barely tolerable, but having to enter my password twice for every wrong attempt is ridiculous.

It should be easy to modify this scheme to make it more user friendly. Others have made good suggestions in this thread, but from my perspective just avoiding the use of confusing characters would be enough. In other words, select the random characters from a list that does NOT include upper or lower case O, and so on.

FWIW.

[jrivett]

if you have joined theese forums just to say that ...

[size=0]i think you might be a candidate to the üb3r n00b prize... well... let that be up to you monthyphy[/size]

Um, no. I didn't. In fact, if you think about it for more than a few seconds, you'll realize that what you're suggesting makes no logical sense. Nice try, though.

[jrivett]

I agree that the validation is a little obscure, but keep in mind that what you have difficulty reading is absolutely impossible for bots to understand.

Of course, why didn't I think of that! In fact, let's go all the way and make a captcha so difficult that NOBODY can use it at all!

[mibias]

about the üb3r n00b thing... That is not something offensive at all... Monthypy have given the üb3r n00b "prize" to a lot of people who just acted a little noobish... And i didnt mean you were n00b at all... I was just a little tired...

[xander]

jrivett: With all due respect, you have made a total of six posts on these forums, four of them in this topic, three of them in a row (when you could have edited instead). The captcha is a pain in the ass, yes. Such is life. You managed to get yourself registered, no? Now that you are registered, let it go! If it is really a problem, pm or email one of the admins (NeoThermic or John) and let them know that you are having trouble. In all likelihood, you will be told that them's the breaks, but they do listen. Also, did you happen to notice that, when you registered, is said something to the effect of "if you are having trouble, email [here]?" It did -- you could very easily have dealt with it that way.

As others have said, there is a trade-off between being able to catch bots, and not throwing out real people. Some bots are going to get through, some real people are going to have trouble. It is unfortunate. However, now that you are a member of the forum, what is the point of complaining about the captchas? You have finished it, and will never have to do it here again. Get over it.

xander