Questioning the Purpose of Captcha

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I recently posted a new thread on the Off-Topic section and had to type in Captcha, as I have to with this thread. Now, unknown to me, I somehow typed the Captcha wrong. Dunno how, but hey, I'm not perfect and I do make mistakes. To be clear, the screen came back with the red rectangle saying "Captcha Error". For whatever reason, I stopped short of typing it again, opened up a new window and went to The Escapist site on that window. When I clicked on the Latest Posts...

THE THREAD WAS POSTED!

This got me into George Carlin mode and I started doing the two moron things I do which are thinking and questioning authority. What purpose does Captcha serve if I type the Captcha wrong, if only to be a minor annoyance to those who wish to post something worth while to them? Is this some kind of joke? Or a programming issue? I'm hoping it's a programming issue. If I can post threads while getting the Captcha wrong, what good does Captcha actually do? Can Captcha be compared to DRM in games in this manner? I've seen multiple posts in various threads about Captcha, but now that it has happened to me, I've gotta talk about it. To be sure this isn't a fluke on my part, whatever the Captcha prompts me for starting this thread, I will honor Yahtzee by typing in "Adventures of Fagballs" as my answer and will use the Edit function if it, indeed, works.

OK, checked the forums and it does not have appeared to work, which to me indicates one of two things - either it WAS a fluke or I did type it correctly and Captcha somehow glitched and said there was an error. Double checking, this time I'm only going to type one letter wrong and see the results.

EDIT: Typed it wrong and it posted the thread as if the Captcha was correct! No error message was sent. My argument stands; what good does Captcha serve?

 

[The_Healer]

I think you're questioning the functionality of captcha, not the purpose.

The purpose of course is to stop everyone being subjected to continuing offers of penis enlargement.[footnote]And I think we can mostly agree that it does this satisfactorily. [/footnote]

 

[2fish]

I think you're questioning the functionality of captcha, not the purpose.

The purpose of course is to stop everyone being subjected to continuing offers of penis enlargement.[footnote]And I think we can mostly agree that it does this satisfactorily. [/footnote]

E-PEEN ENLARGME.T 200.00 US Euros, limited supply!

I would agree but I never got those I got Russian bride ads... well close enough I suppose.

I have yet to mess up a captcha I may have to test this, other than that who cares as long as they don't keep us from posting?

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

One of the words is always wrong. The other is right. Whatever gets put where the wrong one is can be used as a nonsense word in the future. Thus, 4chan usually puts swear words in the nonsense word so that it might come up later.

The Captcha I'm getting, when prompted, is a Verizon commercial Captcha that asks you to type a phrase from said commercial. So far, all of the prompts have asked for more than two words. Not sure if the "one word is false" thing applies in this case.

I think you're questioning the functionality of captcha, not the purpose.

The purpose of course is to stop everyone being subjected to continuing offers of penis enlargement.[footnote]And I think we can mostly agree that it does this satisfactorily. [/footnote]

True, I question it's functionality, but through it I also question it's purpose. I've seen spam on this site with the Captcha in place, though I've never seen penis enlargement ads. In which, I agree with you - if it is Captcha that prevents that, then it does do a satisfactory job.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I have yet to mess up a captcha I may have to test this, other than that who cares as long as they don't keep us from posting?

The reason I posted this was, theoretically, anyone who has a decent Captcha reader, or similar program, could potentially post useless crap that is unwarranted on this site, even if they got the Captcha wrong.

However, if you wanted to argue about "useless crap posts", I guess that would be subjective. I hope you know what I meant by that, though.

 

[2fish]

snippity snip snip

Well I have noticed a new style of captchas recently which seem stupid or at least easier to break as there were no wrong answers I just had to choose from a list of words or a drop down menu.

I guess my point is that I would rather have ones that allow some people to break in and post their crap vs ones that are so hard to read that people can't post their stuff. But I do agree at some point they just become stupid if anything can break through them as your example seems to show.

I would think a PM to a member of the escapist would do more the fix this than a forum post though. Even if the captchas are looking more like viruses or ads than captchas now.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I would think a PM to a member of the escapist would do more the fix this than a forum post though. Even if the captchas are looking more like viruses or ads than captchas now.

This was my initial thought too, but I wanted to check and see if anyone else noticed the kind of things I have and then, if enough had (because I'm a stickler for checking these kind of things out and making sure it isn't just me) I would go ahead and notify someone in the staff or IT; my first PM would probably go to Kross regarding this.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

I notice it happens on Youtube too. If you put in too many comments it comes up with that, even if you get it wrong it still posts the comment. So if you try the captcha a second time and get it right then it has posted your comment twice...

I think that's the reason why I didn't complete the Captcha a second time. I've seen people say that they accidentally posted multiple times and blamed Captcha for it. That, and having two of the exact same thread is a waste of space. Still, I didn't bother with screwing with the old ReCaptcha they had because I never had an issue with it. Maybe this problem is inherent with all Captchas...?

 

[Zeema]

Pretty much Sums it up actually


its true

 

[Abedecain]

Its annoying, but if you have a decent one, it does its job to help stop automated spam