Unreadable images, and strange characters in codes

[inkhaton]

So the last few days i have notices really weird characters like
umlauts, even a schwa. Also the images are becoming increasingly
unreadable to many people. IS this a common trend?

[joecoolest]

I am seeing the same. I chose to implement recaptcha because I thought
the project concept was worthy AND the CAPTCHA images weren't so wonky
that I couldn't resolve more than 2 out of 10 images. While I
understand that the idea is to keep spammers at bay, but not if it
keeps legit customers/visitors at bay as well.

[GaryDPS]

Same here. There are also lots of non-English words, even ranges of
numbers and words that doesn't make sense in any language! The built-
in distortion of characters makes it much more difficult to decipher
words that don't make sense to English speakers.

Today I even got Hebrew characters! Even if I could read them, how
could I type them in using an English keyboard? Something else looked
like Urdu!

Is the Recaptcha team aware of this and are there plans to quickly fix
it? Or is this the way the service is going? I really hope not. Here
are some examples of the nonsense we're seeing right now:

burguisf, lagerkvist, vob (b=beta character), 'et-habbar (accent on
a), "swaec (funny character where a+e are joined), H8-15Q,
(1736-1811), poididne, II-9.8.5, noodoteh, arsunwoo, riefeale,
(Lianshe)37, prefixes (rotated 180 degrees!)...

Thanks,
Gary.

[LaurenceStewart]

Anyone finding a solution to this problem? Numerous customer
complaints have been filed against my Company's site reporting the
same issue. All kids of wierd and foreign characters are recently
showing up. All the same types of things the others have mentioned
are showing up and the general English user does not have the
keyboards or language sets to support these characters. I have
verified that the internationalization setting is set to English using
the ReCaptcha Option of lang: 'en'. Yet we are still getting things
in French, Russion, Spanish and Turkish.

Is there something we can do at the Client level to prevent this? Or
is this an internal reCaptcha issue? I need a solution quick.

Thanks,

Laurence


On Aug 15, 3:41 pm, GaryDPS <directpathsoluti...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

> > > unreadable to many people. IS this a common trend?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[joecoolest]

Apparently, this isn't a serious enough of a problem to warrant even a
reply. I'm removing recaptcha from all of my clients sites this
weekend.

This kind of half assed crap might fly for a non commerce related
site, but my clients have no interest in recaptcha costing them
business because their customers can't make out the Arabic or Chinese
text.

On Aug 16, 12:18 pm, LaurenceStewart <LaurenceStew...@yahoo.com>
wrote:

[Nick Wilcox]

don't feel bad - since Google took over the product has been a mess.
I can't even get a login to get all of my licenses. I have to start
over from scratch as the "Forgotten Password" feature was removed.

Time to find another product...

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[retched]

Isn't there a way to limit to words that appear on the recaptcha using
some kind of add on to the coding?

[P JH]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 11:18 PM, retched <ret...@iwle.com> wrote:
> Isn't there a way to limit to words that appear on the recaptcha using
> some kind of add on to the coding?

No. What appears in the image itself is, currently, not configurable.

--
PJH

[Gary F]

We are logging recaptcha attempts and only half our genuine users get
the captcha right first time. A lot are still trying after 3 attempts.
Recapture is now an unusable product.

Why did Google bother to take this on if they don't care and are happy
to let it rot?

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[inkhaton]

I recieved contact from support that they will fix it "in a couple of
weeks"
Meanwhile the captcha codes are getting more and more absurd

[i-imagine]

Indeed, some of the latest images are by their totally indecipherable
appearance guaranteed to turn away visitors.

So even if it is fixed in a couple of weeks a solution that will help
is to give your visitors an easier way to get new words. The built-in
button is too small to be an obvious choice. Make another one or make
a link with large text to direct them.

If you use the AJAX version:
http://code.google.com/apis/recaptcha/docs/display.html#AJAX
http://www.google.com/recaptcha/demo/ajax

Add a button or a text link with:
onclick="Recaptcha.reload();

as the new link's .js . Put the link near your submit button.

You can see it in these links
(via my Coppermine Photo Gallery plugin)
http://josephcarver.com/index.php
click a picture, then click "Enter Confirmation'

or
http://photos-by.joe-carver.com/index.php
same as above, also see: Contact + Register

It seems to work fine for me

Joe Carver

[JR Johansen]

I totally agree! My stats are showing that only 25% of the attempts
are successful and this is now a block for real users.
I guess my post here is just to weigh in and if enough do it the
priority is increased.

//J

PS. We have also tried to skin the field and that has helped however
there is no fix for non-standard characters and letters warped to the
extent the no one can read them... end of rant ;o)

[Bill_H]

Agree with all the posts above, recaptcha is now becoming unusable.
Our users are constantly complaining about unreadable captchas. Most
are no longer in English, even though we tried setting lang=en.
Frankly, I cannot read them either, let alone duplicate some the weird
letters.

What is going Labs?

Cheers,
Bill

[Michael]

I have been watching mine, and although they are harder to decipher,
they haven't been bad enough that the user shouldn't be able to type
enough of it to get through. I don't know if I'm missing something or
looking at the wrong time, or what.

Anyway, question for all of you. Has anyone tried actually emailing
the ReCaptcha support team: sup...@recaptcha.net

???

[reCAPTCHA Support]

Hi,

Colin from reCAPTCHA here. We're definitely aware that there were
some issues with non-English and other weird things being sent through
reCAPTCHA in the last few weeks. The root source was: we tried to
digitize a batch of books that were labeled as "English"...
incorrectly; as it turns out, these books had many foreign words.

We removed these books from the pipeline last week, which has already
cut down significantly on the number of unreadable CAPTCHAs out there.
This week, we're continuing to remove some other bad ones that have
gotten through the system.

Sorry everyone for the inconvenience.

Best,
Colin

> --
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>
>

--
reCAPTCHA: stop spam, read books
http://recaptcha.net

[GaryDPS]

The books may have been labelled as English, but why didn't anyone
check them before, during or after the digitization process? It's been
3 weeks since the non-English words/chars started appearing.

If anyone needs to try something else, where you can specify which
characters are permitted in the captcha, try captchas.net. It's also
free and supports audio. (Sorry Recaptcha)

On 31 Aug, 22:35, reCAPTCHA Support <supp...@recaptcha.net> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Colin from reCAPTCHA here.  We're definitely aware that there were
> some issues with non-English and other weird things being sent through
> reCAPTCHA in the last few weeks.  The root source was: we tried to
> digitize a batch of books that were labeled as "English"...
> incorrectly; as it turns out, these books had many foreign words.
>
> We removed these books from the pipeline last week, which has already
> cut down significantly on the number of unreadable CAPTCHAs out there.
>  This week, we're continuing to remove some other bad ones that have
> gotten through the system.
>
> Sorry everyone for the inconvenience.
>
> Best,
> Colin
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 5:18 PM, Michael <formi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have been watching mine, and although they are harder to decipher,
> > they haven't been bad enough that the user shouldn't be able to type
> > enough of it to get through.  I don't know if I'm missing something or
> > looking at the wrong time, or what.
>
> > Anyway, question for all of you.  Has anyone tried actually emailing

> > the ReCaptcha support team: supp...@recaptcha.net

>
> > ???
>
> > --
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "reCAPTCHA" group.
> > To post to this group, send email to reca...@googlegroups.com.
> > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to recaptcha+...@googlegroups.com.

> > For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/recaptcha?hl=en.

[Michael]

Come on, now. Do you have any idea how many books they send through
that pipeline each day (I don't)? How about the fact that you think
someone should "check them before"?

You're being silly. If they had enough man(woman)power to check them
all, they wouldn't need a system to identify what is in the books
(errr....that system is ReCaptcha). lol

Besides, if they were labeled, that would seem to signify that someone
DID check them....just that someone made a mistake. Really, your
comment is making me lol.

If you want to use that other service, have at it. I think this one
has a better purpose, and it will all work out soon enough.

Mike

> > reCAPTCHA: stop spam, read bookshttp://recaptcha.net- Hide quoted text -

[inkhaton]

This sounds like a lame bullsh!t excuse.
Look here
http://i.imgur.com/qfdZn.png

This is from a reddit post - the letters are UPSIDE DOWN.

How many millions of books do you really need anyway. Perhaps it would
be better to slow down the process and verify they are ok before
sending them.

As it happens, this is yet another of several hassles with this
captcha.

I switched to a differant solution.

[inkhaton]

Michael -

perhaps you are right but as I understand their purpose is to provide
captcha.

This has been going of for WEEKS. Maybe low-traffic blogs can tolerate
this but when
the site you run is your livelyhood and 30% of your users give up
becuase the captcha is too difficult that can mean you are not paying
your electric bill this month.

I know it is free so I can't complain too much. Maybe I'll switch back.

[Michael]

Cool. I see the user didn't have any issue typing it as they saw it.
lol

On Sep 2, 11:48 am, inkhaton <martin.fe...@gmail.com> wrote:
> This sounds like a lame bullsh!t excuse.

> Look herehttp://i.imgur.com/qfdZn.png

[Michael]

By all means, don't switch back on my behalf. I am not paid enough to
argue about it, I'm not a Google employee. I just think what GaryDPS
was asking for and suggesting was silly.

As far as sites go, I'm using it on a high-volume government site, and
still haven't had to remove it...yet.

Best,
Michael

[GaryDPS]

Yes Michael, of course it's silly to check something before you do it
or to check the results after it's done it. I mean, what time waster
would bother doing that? Why bother checking a process that will
impact millions of people? Why bother taking any responsibility? (I'm
being sarcastic if you haven't realised) It can't take any more than
10 seconds to check a random page or sentence from a book. And you
think doing as much as that is "silly"?

Michael, you have no idea how many checks professionals put in place
to make sure things run smoothly if their business and livelihood
rests on it. e.g. when I or an employee import data we check it first,
do a test run, then monitor the process while it's happening for real,
then check it when it's finished and again after it goes into
production. That way there can be no mistakes, because if there are
then 1000's of people will suffer for it. Yes it takes time, but
mistakes can ruin a reputation that has been built up through hard
work, or have a financial impact on businesses and people or just
plain frustrate a lot of folk.

I know recaptcha is free, but many websites that depend on it at least
getting the character set right are being impacted as a result. And
you still think I'm silly? Fine, I just hope that I never employ
someone as care-free as you. If you are quite young (you sound it)
then I apologize for expecting others to share my high standards and
responding to you with sarcasm.

[reCAPTCHA Support]

Hi,

It's not very productive to rant about past problems here. We're
aware that there's a problem, we've already taken significant steps to
fix it, and are working further to remove any of the remaining
un-typeable words that are out there and to prevent problems like this
from happening in the future.

To clarify: all of these books *were* marked as English books ahead of
time, by librarians or other people who did exactly what you
suggested: opened to a couple random pages and checked that the words
were English. It turns out that some of them were marked incorrectly,
or were books which contained some English and some words from other
languages. We've been using the same exact process for determining
English books as we have since March, and only recently did we happen
to hit a batch of books that were badly marked. We've since made some
changes so that we're more stringent about which books we add to the
system.

Thanks,
Colin

[shweta joshi]

If you get some good solution other then this then pls let me know too.

 

thanks

shweta

[Michael]

Obviously, Gary, you don't grasp the concept behind ReCaptcha. That
is what is silly, and why your suggestion was silly.

And, for your information, it is entirely possible for an English
language book to have a few excerpts of a foreign language in it, for
which statistics would imply that your quick glance, double quick
glance, and triple check (in the "business" world) might actually miss
it.

In addition, people are human, and mistakes are made.

You clearly expect too much from a free service, one with a much
better goal (digitizing text of important books and literature) than
the other "free" services out there, and you miss the point of
ReCaptcha, which is not to provide Captcha as much as it is to provide
the world with digital books.

You also do not have a clue who you are "talking down to" on this
board. That, my friend, shows your maturity level, not mine.

I am 41 years old (since you inquired), been in the web business for a
long time, and have no desire to waste my time talking down to you or
argue with you. You should check yourself in the mirror the next time
you wish to try to judge a person through a computer keyboard and
monitor.

I, too, Gary, am glad I'll never work for you (nor you me).

Michael

[another_sam]

Good to read this.

You may want to put some warn on the reCAPTCHA home page to let the
people know this is being addressed. We started to consider
alternatives since we didn't know if this was going to be forever or
what.

Thank you for you effort.

Regards.

[Jeff Davies]

Agreed. It is still current as of Oct 14th, 2010. Its not a big deal
for those of us that are tech savvy and know how to refresh the
captcha until we get an all-English alphabet. However, many of my
users are far from tech-savvy and they find it frustrating.

- Jeff