Please make anti-spam questions easier.

Post issues, bugs, and feature requests about the various WineHQ websites to this forum.
Locked
AlastairGrowcott
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2018 7:12 am

Please make anti-spam questions easier.

Post by AlastairGrowcott »

I have no idea what the first name of the maintainer of the staging branch is. I do not know the names of every Linux distribution out there, nor which ones use Debian packages.

When I apparently forgot my password (mis-typed it more like) just once, then tried a different password in case I had used it instead, but either got that wrong or mis-typed it, I suddenly found that to log in I also needed to answer a question that would challenge any contestant on any TV quiz show. Or in fact someone with the entire google-able internet at their fingertips.

In order to register this second account so I could post this desperate plea, I only manage to do so through a lucky 1 in 3 guess. Out of a list of 5 Linux distributions I knew for a fact that 2 used .deb packages and by chance managed to guess the right one out of the remaining three.

What is wrong with questions like "what colour do you get if you mix blue and yellow" or something. Very hard for a spambot to answer, very easy for a person.

I want to use Wine. Since I found a very promising looking new game I want to play under Linux, I now want to start contributing. But I am finding it so very hard purely because of this issue.
User avatar
dimesio
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 13202
Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:30 pm

Re: Please make anti-spam questions easier.

Post by dimesio »

AlastairGrowcott wrote: What is wrong with questions like "what colour do you get if you mix blue and yellow" or something. Very hard for a spambot to answer, very easy for a person.
Which makes it very easy for a human spammer; that's the problem with general knowledge questions. When we had questions like that, I'd find 60-100 new spam accounts and posts every morning. Sure, once we got forced moderation I could stop them before the went public, but that was hundreds of posts I had to read, reject, and ban the poster, one by one.

The recommended way to deal with that is to ask questions targeted specifically at your users, and that's what I've tried to do. The answers to the Wine ones can all be found on this site. As to whether that's too hard, I guess that's a matter of personal preference. I'd much rather look up an answer than have to squint at a tiny, grainy photo and try to decide if it's a storefront.
Locked