The Hobbitizer

[primsong]

To prove I can talk about something other than Percy - We've been working on updates for our boards and looking at the myriad ways one can try to outsmart the spam-bots (those 'type in the warped letters' things don't work anymore) - one of the simple ones was called 'The Humanizer' - it asks you one question, "Are You Human?" which you toggle yes or no. Seeing as it is only a matter or time until the bots are programmed to toggle one or the other, allowing at least half of them to get through, we are taking it a step beyond that.

I've put together an array of pictures, and they will soon be in an array of about 12 pictures a new registree will see. All a bot will know is here's a bunch of unlabeled images with boxes by them. A human being however can read "Click the boxes by all the pictures of Hobbits" and get in. Half of the pictures are hobbits, randomly sorted each time. The other half? In honor of Linaewen, they are images of cheese.

If a person can't tell the difference between Hobbits and Cheese, do we want them on our boards anyway? I think not. ;-)

Comments

[lin4gondor.livejournal.com]

Oh, how clever, I must join under a false name just so I can see those images!!!

And yes, I am totally and irrevocably honored.

*wonders whether to ROTFL or sniffle appreciatively, then decides to do both, and then go eat cheese*

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Cheese is wonderful and so are you... yum....cheese...

[true-gaudior.livejournal.com]

That sounds like an excellent idea. Easy to program on the server side, and easy to do on the user side. How are you dealing with an alternative method for the vision impaired? Many sites use a short audio clip, where the user types back the words spoken to them.

Options...

[primsong.livejournal.com]

I hate to say it, but we hadn't gotten to that at all yet - I'll see what's out there that may be easy to implement, but I like the idea of being able to contact the admins in that case also. Thanks for bringing it up - the more feedback, the better.

Re: Options...

[true-gaudior.livejournal.com]

Unless your volume of new user requests is huge, stick with the admin covering the requests. Having an option to make it easier for the impaired also makes it easier for the sleazeballs.

[estellye.livejournal.com]

Ahh yes, True_gaudior has a point. I was thinking, "what a good idea!" Not only effective, but it get's the new folks smiling right off the bat which can't be a bad thing. And you're quite right - surely everyone can tell the difference between a hobbit and cheese (except maybe a very hungry hobbit, though I expect the howl when they bite into a fellow would forestall any major resulting damage). But yes, it did occur to me there could very well be vision impaired Tolkien fans who would enjoy the boards. Maybe they could just have a note to contact the admins., and that would take care of it.

It's nice to see you popping up on LJ!

[true-gaudior.livejournal.com]

Unless there is a huge volume of new sign-ups, having an admin do the job on request is probably a good compromise. Unfortunately, it's not 1998 anymore. You can't trust the clever ones to also be ethical and polite.

The really sneaky thing is that there are boiler-room operations in some parts of the world where people are paid piecework for solving these authentication schemes.

[siradaono.livejournal.com]

been missing you...it is good to see you about my friend.

and if you have any books to get rid of, please let me know asap as we are having a Book Drive to raise monies for the Youth going to Estes Park Colorado in August for a Day of The Youth.

(((((Prim))))))

[primsong.livejournal.com]

When will you need them? I'm doing a used book sale sometime in March - if there is anything good leftover that we aren't packing away for curriculum selling, I would be glad to keep them for you to use.

[siradaono.livejournal.com]

Anything Anytime At All.
e-mail or ring me 653-8865 days.
Thanks for considering it.