Why not disable CAPTCHA after 100 posts?

[Souplex]

Because your account could be potentially hacked by a spambot.
http://www.google.com/recaptcha/api/image?c=03AHJ_VusakQCoz1zWVZH0hZEgVGa0YSC5hjtVLv6Zttc5mxpCNEz7gGmTCzCbCDhrM1Tvj1Wj8mXJItI8asKMUfbPpahlvlJz3FOJkXW-DyGQ1VYluXFHuit1sGApc4F6mBAvjeZhh81g829PD7IXfXONPpOA6onVPA
Captcha: its orictal

 

[Lancer873]

This becomes the thought process of spamming companies if you do...

1: Hire someone to make a accounts and make 100 actual posts each (yes, they /would/ actually do this. You have no idea how pathetic those companies can be)

2: Use accounts to cause widespread spamvertising.

3: Cause mods a lot of headache.

4: ??????

5: PROFIT.

 

[manaman]

I don't really see the harm in making a post limit, but there must be one. They wouldn't continue to require captchas out of everyone without a good reason. It can't be the ads either, because it's only a limited selection of people that see them.

The purpose of the CAPTCHA system is to ensure that spambots are not able to constantly sign up and flood the forum with posts (something it doesn't do [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.300279-Have-you-ever-bought-a-game-you-knew-nothing-about-and-upon-playing-it-found-it-to-be-AWESOME?page=2#11953089], but that's a discussion for later).

When you bring it up it's a discussion for now. So here goes:

Stop: No.
Prevent them from flooding the boards: Yes.

It takes time and effort to defeat the captcha system on signup, but it's possible. Then you can make a few posts and are captchad again.

That's the point, not stopping completely, but slowing down the deluge and allowing moderation to catch what slips through. To make a system that is completely spam free would require far to much restriction to normal users.

 

[manaman]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

 

[Macgyvercas]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Yeah, what captcha? I see no captcha.

>.>

 

[FalloutJack]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

And I say that's a very good joke.

 

[Cherry Cola]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

More like 20,000

 

[manaman]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

And I say that's a very good joke.

I am quite thoroughly and totally confused.

I got a quote notification about a response from Cherry Cola, then I hit the link and it takes me to your post. Totally different posts, and the one from Cherry Cola is nowhere to be found.

The escapist done ate it I thinks.

Edit: Nope, it was just late, but then why no notification for this post. I am confused.

 

[manaman]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

More like 20,000

I shudder when I think of all the captchas I would have to burn through to get up to 20,000.

Then again I have nearly 15,000 posts and I have only made some 3400 forum posts.

It's cause I live in the groups. I only come out to stalk the easily startled forum grazers.

 

[FalloutJack]

it would be nice but I have a feeling they are also using captcha as a profit generator since it turns off if you join the publishers club

What captcha? *huge grin*

Okay, from now on club members doing this is officially trolling.

OT: This is actually a rather good idea. The spambots are all new with a post-count of MUCH LESS THAN A HUNDRED. Cautionary fellow might say 500 posts, but I think after my 6,000 that I should be clear, yes?

I say 15,000 is a better number to reach.

More like 20,000

I shudder when I think of all the captchas I would have to burn through to get up to 20,000.

Then again I have nearly 15,000 posts and I have only made some 3400 forum posts.

It's cause I live in the groups. I only come out to stalk the easily startled forum grazers.

Even still, and confusions about the Escapist aside, your numbers are unreasonable.

 

[Sethzard]

I would think it's partially to encourage people join the publishers club, but also to stop people from making accounts with 100 posts then selling them.

 

[evilneko]

Only partially? Well, I guess the other part is potential ad slot. It's not about spam prevention, that much is certain.

 

[Fayathon]

That's... interesting. Revenues from a click on a banner ad generally run in the area of a few cents. PubClub runs at $20. It's hard to believe the average Escapist user clicks on banner ads hundreds of times per year.

I would theorize that the before video ads and the enormous pop-up ads all pay a 'per view' kind of fee due to the nature of them being so in your face about it, I wouldn't think that all of the ad revenue is from clicking alone, there's got to be other stuff in there. Also, you have to think the that even to get 200 clicks on ads is only one ad clicked two out of three days, looking at it like that it doesn't seem so unreasonable.

That's right, I hadn't considered the stuff besides banner ads. In that case, why the big hullabaloo about the-Firefox/Chrome-extension-that-shall-not-be-named? It's client-side, the ad servers should have no way of knowing

I'd imagine if it was common practice to talk about and use adblockers then no-one would want to advertise here because they know it'd be a waste of resources.

 

[llafnwod]

Because then you could still just post 100 times and then unleash your bot.

A hundred useful posts before getting banned after a couple of spam posts? A net gain for our lovely forum. If they try one-word BS, that's no different than the "first!" asshats who are already banned on a regular basis.

I don't really see the harm in making a post limit, but there must be one. They wouldn't continue to require captchas out of everyone without a good reason.

God works in mysterious ways. People do not. If there's a good reason, it ought to be fairly easy to explain.

When you bring it up it's a discussion for now. So here goes:

Stop: No.
Prevent them from flooding the boards: Yes.

That's nice, but the point I was taking for granted (that CAPTCHA works) was one is favor of the Escapist's current policy, not my proposed one. Which is why I decided to put it off. I really don't know why you think that if a CAPTCHA can be defeated, it takes a significant amount of time for the bot to do so, but even if this were the case I don't see how it addresses my suggestion of keeping the CAPTCHA system only for the first hundred posts.