Using captchas on the forum?

[Torsten]

Hi, are you familiar with the term 'captcha'?

Thanks,
Torsten

TOEIC listening, photographs: Working with food

[Mister Micawber]

I suppose it means 'capture'-- has it something to do with capturing images onscreen?
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Cerberus™]

I thought this was well-known, but apparently it is a bit of a technical term: the picture that shows a few letters or numbers that you must identify in order to do something on a website, such as making a new account, posting a message, etc.; it is mostly used against spambots.
Are you planing om implementing captchas? I'd be very much in favour of requiring captchas for 1. creating a new account and 2. posting a message containing an external link. I expect users will be able to work with them even if they do not know the term.

[Mister Micawber]

Oh, those things. Fer godsakes, don't make me have to do one of those every time I log in. I hate 'em. I can't read 'em.
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Native English teacher at Mister Micawber's

[Tomasito]

I don't know the meaning. I only knowthat we use in the beggining of a sentence and names.
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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Slava]

I have always problems with CAPTCHAs when registering on other websites.

[Torsten]

Well, in order to create a Gmail account you need to type in a captcha image. Since a lot of our forum users have a Gmail account, they do know how to use them: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=mail&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2Fe-11-11748780e6d3c588f05d74317d7fa507-cd333e04cd284b2ed1ea1459375d900a5c9162b1&type=2&gd=1

Google calls it 'Word Verification' and adds this line: 'Type the characters you see in the picture below.'

I think at some point we will need to start preventing spam rather than or in addition to removing existing spam.

TOEIC listening, photographs: Relaxing on the couch

[Tomasito]

I thought that you was talking about capital letters. We can also see this system being used in blogspot when you want to leave a comment. You should incorporate it in this forum Tosten.
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Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
- Will Durant

[Cerberus™]

I agree with Mr. Micawber: it would be horrible to fill in captchas for every log-in or message; I hate them, too. However, just for making a new account and for posting external links would be fine; how often do you do that? New accounts alone would repel many spammers already.

[Torsten]

We are talking about the forum registration process. So, new users would be required to type in the word verification only once.

TOEIC listening, photographs: A girl resting

[Cerberus™]

I won't repeat myself again by saying I am strongly in favour of captchas for new users.

In addition, if you were to implement captchas for messages with external links in them, you could have moderators put serious users on a safelist, which would free them from any and all captchas.

[Richard]

Hi Torsten
I agree with Cerberus™.
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