...Really now, Escapist? I am disappoint.

[WOPR]

Once they brought in the Captchas, I thought 'Oh, this is odd, but I'll play along'. And it was good (or at least alright). I understand that they have to make money somehow, but these new ones are Captchas that double as advertisements. Maybe it's me, but mixing advertising and Captchas seems a little gauche, as now you have to type in some slogan or text about an exciting new offer or what have you.

Is anyone else getting these, or am I just going insane? Also, what are your thoughts on them, if you've shared my experience?

disappointed*

...

DANGIT I'M DOING IT AGAIN!
(I personally just don't like the blasted things; but yeah I see them everywhere now)

 

[SeanTheSheep]

Once they brought in the Captchas, I thought 'Oh, this is odd, but I'll play along'. And it was good (or at least alright). I understand that they have to make money somehow, but these new ones are Captchas that double as advertisements. Maybe it's me, but mixing advertising and Captchas seems a little gauche, as now you have to type in some slogan or text about an exciting new offer or what have you.

Is anyone else getting these, or am I just going insane? Also, what are your thoughts on them, if you've shared my experience?

I'd like to ask you to look in the news section of the Tech Team group. I'm far too tired to type much out explaining the situation, for which I'm truly sorry, but essentially, it's to stop spambots, and because the Captchas were resulting in failure so much, they're giving half of everyone the new advertising related ones, and half Captchas to track which generates more failures.

 

[Grey_Focks]

eh, the old ones were pretty annoying, but not too bad. On the otherhand, some of them appear to be riddles of all things. Riddle advertisements. If there is a more evil thing known to man I have yet to see it.

 

[Atmos Duality]

The only time it bothers me is when it requires me to type in an advertisement catchphrase.
"In order to post, you must willingly debase yourself with product placement!"

Can't wait for it to become standard...

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

Just a sidenote: Spam is a logical step from commercials.

So the next time you run into someone who's in the "marketing" business (i.e pissing away resources and degrading the cultural expressions across the globe) bear in mind that it is these fucktards who willingly serve as cogs in a machinery that ultimately produce spam, both the kind that ends up on messageboards, and in your e-mail as "junk mail" and also as annoying pop-up ads hindering your surfing on the internet.

So if you dislike any of these things, I suggest you spit on the next person who says they're in "marketing" and tell them that you hate them and their choice of career. It's what they deserve.

 

[Death God]

It has a good side and a bad side. They prevent spam from entering the forums but now they cause a interference with the users. So it goes 50/50 but yes, they are quite annoying.

 

[megapenguinx]

I'm okay with them.
If they cut down the amount of spam we get on the boards then I'm fine punching in a short phrase or whatnot. Seriously, if you guys were here back in the days when we only had 3 mods you would understand.

 

[Chainsaws_of_War_2]

Wait, there are captchas now?

 

[K4ndY]

I know it's to prevent spam on this site, which I can appreciate, but I have to admit that the first time it happened it actually took me a few tries before realizing why my post wasn't going through... Oh well, I'll get used to it eventually.

Can't say I've noticed any advertisements through.

 

[Motiv_]

Oddly enough, I've dealt with it exactly once since it's been implemented. And it's not even that big of a deal to me, it might just be that I'm just that awesome, but I don't see them as a nuisance.

 

[zombiesinc]

I haven't run into any myself, *knocks on wood*. I really struggled with the one used by Steam when signing up for an account. Took me countless tries to get it right. >.<

 

[Sassafrass]

I haven't got not one, and I make 20-40 posts a day. :3

Methinks your postcount may have something to do with it, but I have yet to get one. :/

I've had to fill in about 7 or 8 now, so I don't think it's done on your post count. I think it's every 20th post and that.

And I don't think you get one soon as you're both a Mod and a Pub Club member, Aylaine. Doubt a Mod would start spamming any time soon. *Reserves seat for when a Mod goes mad and starts spamming random lolcats and memes* XD

 

[Bloodstain]

The captchas give the whole place a 4chan-kinda feeling... o:

 

[Something Amyss]

The captchas have nothing to do with making money. It's because the site was becoming a target for spambots.

These ones are annoying though, they're barely readable 90% of the time.

So they're replacing advertising we don't want with... advertising we don't want.

Fuck yeah.

Even better. They're replacing adverts I have never seen with adverts I now see several times a day.

I mean, I get WHY they say they put them up. But I'm yet to see spam bots on here, so it seems kind of dubious to protect me from them with even more advertising.

 

[Sassafrass]

Hmm, if I'm immune that's sort of cool but what about everyone else? D:

Ah, we'll live, it only takes a few extra seconds of our time anyway. The only problem I can see with it is if you're in a fast moving RP. Plus, the issue of the "reCapthca" system (I wasn't picked for that new fangled one so I get the old one.) saying you got it wrong when you know you got it right appears to be fixed, at least on my end.

Also, this post needed a captcha. I only get them in threads about it, too. XD

 

[Kae]

yes the are ridiculously annoying and it always takes me a few times to hit the right answer so most of the times I get annoyed and don't post!

 

[Scout Tactical]

The captchas have nothing to do with making money. It's because the site was becoming a target for spambots.

These ones are annoying though, they're barely readable 90% of the time.

My last captcha was ToyotaCare, and it had a background of a car, and it had a picture of a hand with a key being dropped into it. Are you sure you want to make that claim?

 

[nin_ninja]

Kinda annoying, especially for a forum.

 

[Weaver]

Some people need to join the Tech Team group and turn on chat notifications so that you have a clue what is going on with escapist.

You would know many things like:
-Why they implemented captchas in the 1st place.
-You would know that you'll only get one on your second post, one on your 10th, and then one every 20th post after that each day.
-They are testing the new captchas on about half the people while others are still getting the recaptcha because recaptcha has had issues with coming up with legible stuff.
-And much more!

Heres a link to the group, join it and be informed!
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/groups/view/Tech-Team

So instead of making and sticking a global and stickied post everyone will read, I was supposed to be reading this user group all along I never knew existed and never even speculated that it WOULD exist? That seems silly to me.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Once they brought in the Captchas, I thought 'Oh, this is odd, but I'll play along'. And it was good (or at least alright). I understand that they have to make money somehow, but these new ones are Captchas that double as advertisements. Maybe it's me, but mixing advertising and Captchas seems a little gauche, as now you have to type in some slogan or text about an exciting new offer or what have you.

Is anyone else getting these, or am I just going insane? Also, what are your thoughts on them, if you've shared my experience?

I'm getting them too. While I'm really bad at the original captchas and welcome the ease with which I can read the new ones, I do NOT welcome this kind of advertising.

Let me be clear that I have absolutely no problem with advertising pretty much anywhere on the site. I get to enjoy this community for free and I thank the people who provide it. If I could afford to contribute money directly, I would. Similarly, I don't mind the captchas too terribly (again, despite my own ineptitude at them) because I know they help the mod team.

But actually forcing me to look at advertisements and TYPE OUT brand and product names is too far. I get enough brand reinforcement seeing advertisements, I really don't need to be forced to pay attention to them and then have to WRITE THEM DOWN so as to more thoroughly soak them into my brain. To make matters worse, they're not even hiding the fact that they're advertisements AT ALL. If you click on them, you even go to a page on the product. These are banner ads that we're being forced to read closely and then forced to repeat and further commit to memory.

Escapist, I am disappoint.