For the love god, PLEASE STOP with the CAPTCHA.

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Apart from giving advice for workarounds I don't think there's anything the WP moderators can do about this. Perhaps Alex can, but so far we don't know if he's even aware of this thread.

The only ones who actually can do something are CloudFlare, so I would suggest reporting bugs to them at https://support.cloudflare.com/requests

Now, the fact that a CAPTCHA comes up at all is not a bug, so there is no point in reporting that, but if for example you cannot get past the CAPTCHA screen despite entering the correct text or it keeps re-appearing for every post I'd say that is a bug. It's supposed to set a cookie which prevents it from coming up again. It doesn't seem to work so well, though.

The entire system is, of course, a very blunt instrument. I'm sure there are better solutions to whatever problems it's trying to solve, but they require time and effort to implement.

Edit: I almost never get the CAPTCHA myself, but I did when making this post! Irony? Or CloudFlare conspiracy to prevent negative posts about it?

I hope this isn't another one of those anonymously instigated hate-crimes directed at us like it was with the spammers a while back?

It's kind of funny that only wrongplanet has this problem right now out of all websites in the world.

After posting in several threads in PPR today, I teamed up with Liam Neeson for a joint statement on the current CAPTCHA situation:

The CAPTCHA challenges are not generated by spammers or someone intent on causing problems for the site.
I know that's hard to believe when you're being challenged on every preview of the same post...

It clearly needs some fine-tuning: this system fine for a one-off "click this link to join" approach, but fails badly when multiple accesses are involved within the same transaction - like post preview.

It also appears to be somewhat over-sensitive to post content.
Elsewhere I was challenged for quoting... the CAPTCHA challenge text (the so-called "What can I do to prevent this in the future?" message) - yet when I replaced that quoted text with "Now is the time for all good men", the challenges stopped.

The buggy software has already ruined things for him, and frankly I'm not surprised.
It's not his decision to "let it do that" from the sounds of things.
It really should be sorted out.





Does anybody have a reliable means of sending Alex a link to this thead ?
I don't because (somewhat annoyingly) Alex has chosen only to list a "Wrong Planet.net" e-mail address.
What this means is that messages are very likely not to be delivered.
If the system storing Wrong Planet is overloaded enough to cause it to barf out Captchas, then it will not be prioritising the delivery of e-mails sent to a Wrong Planet e-mail address ; and they're likely to be lost in the ether instead of arriving in Alex's inbox.

Furthermore....

It sounds likely that there are two main problems.

(1) Underfunding for the capacity to run Wrong Planet.
Considering how many members WP has, it will need a good deal of both storage space for data - and also ongoing bandwidth in order to process simultaneous access and posting requests from members. This must match - or preferrably exceed - the active membership of an internet forum, and it is down to the person who owns the forum to pay enough to their forum hosting provider, to cover capacity hire which matches the forum's membership.

There is no point in complaining to Cloudflare if Alex is underfunding the capacity for WP.
They are probably doing exactly what he has told them to, by innundating us with Captchas once the activity of the forum goes above the requested level (even though that does seem to be far too low)



(2) Severely glitchy software.
I understand from error messages, that this forum is a phpBB forum.
This means that it can be altered completely at a code level ; in order to customise it, or fix bugs.
It also has an active support community who will respond to requests for help with fixing phpBB glitches.
Is anybody actually trying to fix the many glitches this forum has been bombarding myself and others with ?

It's so bad for glitches, that perhaps what is needed is a completely fresh installation of phpBB.
This involves saving out variable data (all of the post data, PM data, user list, etc) , reinstalling the forum from scratch (somebody would have done that to begin with in order to get WP forum here in the first place) , and putting the variable data back in so that it's back to how it was to begin with (with all posts, PMs etc) ... the phpBB support community (accessible from the forum at the phpBB website) will be able to help with that.

This should REALLY be dealt with soon, though.
People should not simply be expected to put up with the amount of dross this forum dishes out, just to make a couple of posts every once in a while. I feel quite bothered that even a moderator (who was just trying to help by removing spammers) has been so annoyed by the SNAFU forum problems that they have left for the benefit of their health. That really is not good enough at all. They should not have to put up with so much crap just to be a moderator.

AND I still reckon IT WOULD BE SO NICE is there were at least legible Captchas.
The f*****g forum makes me type in both Captcha words, even though one is always barely coherent at best... and if I try to get it to read the "words" out then it simply loads a new Captcha.... making me think that EVEN THE SODDING CAPTCHA MACHINE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT SAYS !

Starting yesterday, I was getting the CAPTCHA prompt every two or three posts, and with a few PM's. I thought maybe the site had been invaded by spambots, so I didn't think much of it, annoying though it is.

So it can start happening if cookies or disabled or you have an ad blocker? Guess that answers my question--sorry, I'm not turning AdBlocker off--my computer kept crashing before I installed it. Guess I'll just have to put up with deciphering code.

(I'll probably get it with this one too--holding my breath as I hit "submit." )

Not really... not when you consider that :



Most internet forums which are active and have a lot of members also have an owner who puts a bit of time and effort into keeping them maintained (by doing upgrades, bug fixes, increasing server capacity to suit growing membership, and so forth)

I could be wrong about this, but I get the impression that's just not happening with this forum.

This is very wise.
I do not think it's a good idea to shut down your Adblocker, given what you've said.

I haven't been running an Adblocker on my PC, and I assure you that not having one does not improve the situation one little bit.

Please refer to my previous posts in this topic, to see just how annoying it can be even without an Adblocker.

For the love of f*****g sheep f**k arrrgh sh*****g sloshmonkeys.
STOP IT WITH ALL THE CAPTCHAS.

Even complaining about the Captchas ends up with you being whacked over the head by an anvil covered in Captcha text.

I just had to put in "explanation sCOrtMY"

Well, I want an *explanation* for why the f**k I keep having to type s**t like "explanation sCOrtMY" into this sodding forum just to complain about all of the whore-banging louse-ridden Captchas !

@Ladywoofwoof: thank you. Some other sites have generated messages saying "please disable AdBlocker for this site--it's how we generate revenue." Well, that won't do much good if I can't even turn my computer on.

Maybe some other tech-savvy members can help Alex with the daily operations of this site. I understand he's busy with a lot of other things, but stuff like this needs attention.

So, Alex, if you're reading this--take it under consideration. I'm sure there are several members who could take care of the bugs, including the CAPTCHA problem. (Sadly, I am not one of them--otherwise, I'd volunteer right now.)

Haha.

I like the digitizing books aspect, but it does take me out of my "posting" mindset and is kind of annoying.

I've encountered it several more times - nearly every post I've made in the past two days.

I've only had the CAPTCHA problem a couple of times,thank goodness.I hate those things,makes me doubt I am human.But I have got an error in posting a couple of times.I just kept trying, and eventually it would post.But it does not happen enough to be really annoying.

No problem. I'm glad to have given advice which you found helpful.
Do you run a virus scanner ? That's quite a severe problem you mention, about it not being able to even run Windows unless the Adblocker is up. Do you use iExplorer as your web browser, or have you tried using other browsers with the same result ?

I reckon that if anybody is wanting help from tech-savvy members of WP for free, then they should probably get their skates on and ask very nicely... because if it takes much longer, then a lot of people (some of whom might otherwise be able and willing to help) are likely to throw up their hands in frustration and walk off in disgust, or simply refuse to help because they're sick of their complaints going unheard (and the stress of it all) and because, well.... they have plenty of other things to do as well.

It does freeze up a lot as it is, and was far worse before AdBlocker. I have Norton and McAfee installed.

I use Mozilla Firefox. Internet Explorer is even worse. Granted, I've had this laptop since 2007--still has Windows Vista on it. Not sure if Windows 7, 8, etc. is much better, though (I've heard mixed reviews from people).

Any other browsers work better for you in terms of freezing and crashing less often? I'm willing to try anything.

I have found that Firefox seems to be the best Windows browser for having good functionality and security.
You are very wise to avoid iExplorer.... even when patched to death, it's notorious for being full of more security holes than just about anything on the planet.

If you run two different virus scanners (both Norton and McCafee) then they are VERY likely to conflict and make the computer a lot less stable, as they use many of the same protocols and are designed to be used exclusively. I think it would certainly be worth choosing one of them (the one you find most effective) and uninstalling the other one, to see whether that would make your PC more stable.

That said, if you've been using the same copy of Windows for the last 6 years and use the computer at all often, eh.... it is almost certainly in a bad way by now, as Windows really isn't designed to be used for many years without needing to be reinstalled, and without it eventually falling apart. It's not the type of 'Windows' which would be the problem in that case, it would be the length of time which the initial installation of Windows has been used for.

If you choose to upgrade, then Windows 7 seems to be very good.
I have that on my laptop, and it's great.
My understanding is that many people think Windows 8 is not good in comparison - but I've never used it personally.

I wish you good luck, with this.

I'll keep all that in mind--thanks. People have told me I should just get a new laptop--maybe it's time I broke down and did so.

I appreciate the advice, btw.