Allow users to pick with type of CAPTCHA test they see

[septim]

Title:
Allow users to pick with type of CAPTCHA test they see

Area:
comments, entries

Summary:
Allowing users to choose which type of CAPTCHA (text-based or graphic based) they will see/take through Manage Account.

Description:
Users choosing what type of CAPTCHA they will see/take allows greater accessibility.

I have dyscalculia and the text-based CAPTCHAs are full of arithmetic problems, thus I keep failing them. As of now, there's no way to choose which CAPTCHAs you will take, only what type of CAPTCHAs others will see in your journal.

Poll #10625 Allow users to pick with type of CAPTCHA test they see

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 78

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
56 (71.8%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (1.3%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (3.8%)

(I have no opinion)
17 (21.8%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.3%)

Comments

[azurelunatic]

I apologize for not thinking the implications of my comment through better.

I would like to give more background on where I'm coming from as well.

I view spam as not just an annoyance, but as a threat that has the potential to bring a site to its knees if it's allowed to gain a large enough foothold. It doesn't have that much of a foothold at the moment, but there was a large campaign within the last month that severely tested the human limits of the current system. There's been a bug filed for quite some time about spam CAPTCHA tracking, and if there is another campaign like this recent one before another developer has time to take up the bug, I'm likely to try my hand at development. My instinct says that passing information on whether a CAPTCHA was passed for a comment, and which one, back to the antispam team, would be easier than the ability to change which one is presented and make a setting for this preference, in that I'm able to imagine myself taking on the former as a very neophyte developer, but I don't know the code well enough to say for sure.

However, not only did I discount accessibility in favor of antispam when making my initial comment, I also ignored that people are already able to choose between visual and audio CAPTCHA with ReCAPTCHA. So not only was my prioritization inappropriate, it was also grounded in inaccuracy. Further user choice of method of CAPTCHA is unlikely to have an effect on spam penetration; it's the simple fact of whether a CAPTCHA was presented or not that's of immediate interest to the spamwhackers in the event of another large attack.

[archane]

Thank you for your clarification, and for your understanding.

I'm not a development person, and know very little about the back-end of running websites, so I figured that there had to be more that I didn't understand, which is why I commented about how your statement appeared to me, rather than making assumptions about your intent.

Given your clarification, particularly since the option to choose already exists, it sounds to me like there's no reason for accessibility changes and spam tracking changes to be inter-dependent — one followed by the other — instead of independent but related.

[azurelunatic]

I phrased myself particularly poorly, considering that I had in a large part intended my comment to prevent a potential flood of comments from people without insight into the actual antispam systems citing spam risk as a reason for not wanting this to happen. I didn't follow that train of thought far enough before leaving the comment.