Requests for Comment/Restore old CAPTCHA

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This RfC is interesting in a couple ways. For one thing, it was raised by a non-registered anonymous user. While we may or may not have a codified global policy on whether anonymous users can start an RfC, we do not permit non-registered users from expressing binding views in permissions requests on Meta Wiki (whether global or Meta only permissions requests). As well, since it's impossible to ascertain whether an anonymous user is expressing multiple views, it holds that it is therefore procedurally unfair for an anonymous user to be given standing to raise an issue that proposes either a policy change, a procedural change effecting the entire Miraheze community, or similar. Rather, the anonymous user should've been guided via their anonymous user user talk page to e-mail stewardsmiraheze.org to request that Stewards create an account for them, as they have been delegated by the community to ensure community-established global policies, particularly user accounts policy, are upheld or otherwise taken into account in application. Separately, as a procedural housekeeping comment, noting the prior good-faith closure, it's important to note that Meta:User close policy, allowing for non-Steward or Meta bureaucrat closure of permissions requests, applies only to Meta permissions requests, so closure of RfCs should be left to Stewards or Meta bureaucrats, as applicable. If closure is needed an RfC, closure can be requested at Stewards' noticeboard or Meta:Administrators' noticeboard, as applicable. Back to the issue raised, I find that the anonymous user lacks the standing to raise this issue and, additionally, that this RfC was also not the best course of action given that the anonymous user was unable to create an account. As to the consensus, there appears to be an emerging consensus forming from the valid views expressed that this is too soon to throw the baby out with the bathwater in terms of whether to abandon ReCAPTCHA 2.0. Nevertheless, in consideration of the minority views expressed, SRE is advised to take note of those concerns expressed here, at stewards' noticeboard recently, and elsewhere, and investigate potential workarounds or, potentially, other CAPTCHA alternatives. Dmehus (talk) 19:51, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

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Thanks to the new CAPTCHA, I can’t make an account. You wait 10 minutes, then it says visitors from this IP address have created 1 account in the past five minutes. I hate this. I want the old CAPTCHA. The one with the pictures.

Proposal

Support

1. As proposer 174.206.233.93 18:40, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
2.  Strongest support YellowFrogger (talk)

Oppose

1.  Strongest oppose Yeah, no. Not happening. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 18:57, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

   @DarkMatterMan4500: It's still happening. And a month ago on [1] YellowFrogger (talk) 06:22, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

   @YellowFrogger: I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. The New CAPTCHA was better off to reduce spambots as what the other people were saying. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 10:51, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

2.  Oppose The new CAPTCHA has reduced spambot registrations by a lot. If you're having issues creating an account, please email techmiraheze.org. Agent Isai ^{Talk to me!} 19:27, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

   @Agent Isai: Sending email is a waste of time. It's best to go fix the problem on all wikis soon. YellowFrogger (talk) 06:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

   @YellowFrogger: So is dealing with the spambots that this new CAPTCHA prevented. The new CAPTCHA completely killed off spambot registrations which is very good. The old CAPTCHA was very easy to exploit by robots. Using the old CAPTCHA is the same as using no CAPTCHA. Agent Isai ^{Talk to me!} 13:52, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

3.  Oppose contact Tech per the above. Better to fix the system to resolve fringe cases than undo the progress that's ultimately happened. --Raidarr (talk) 19:35, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
   • @Raidarr: I suspect that this IP might be the same person who was abusing multiple accounts on the Qualitipedia Central Wiki making pointless Requests for Comment requests that were ultimately deleted, and the users blocked for it. DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 19:41, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
4.  Oppose per above. --Magogre (talk) 10:18, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
5.  Strong oppose Captchas are for antispam. What good is a captcha that isn’t effective at stopping spam. It just defeats the whole purpose of having a captcha if it isn’t effective. v3 needs to stay. MacFan4000 ^{(Talk Contribs)} 16:08, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments

the one in the picture above is not the error itself, but it is when you try to create an account again after the error.

@Agent Isai: @DarkMatterMan4500: @MacFan4000: @Raidarr: The people who are voting Oppose here, they have no idea how much the CAPTCHA is getting in the way. I prefer spambots to only create accounts on the wiki, than no user can create an account because of an error in this CAPTCHA YellowFrogger (talk) 17:10, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@YellowFrogger: That's not something caused by CAPTCHA, this sort of thing could've been implemented even without CAPTCHA or with CAPTCHA v2 too. This is just an antispam feature added by Miraheze directly to curb spambots. While you may not see it, Special:AbuseLog was always full of spambots and it was hard to detect actual vandalism when spam drowned it out. If you have a grievance to file against the account creation error, then I would suggest you express your concerns on the Community noticeboard and see if perhaps this is a bug that a sysadmin could fix rather than trying to axe off something completely unrelated. Agent Isai ^{Talk to me!} 18:44, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Frankly YellowFrogger, you have no idea how the spam was becoming before the new captcha was impelemented. The issues are isolated and can be handled by process mentioned a few times above. You might disagree, but it boils to 'agree to disagree' and the disagree vastly overwhelms the agrees so far. --Raidarr (talk) 19:38, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Raidarr Finally I was only able to create an account in normal mode. In anonymous mode I can't (talk) 21:35, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

This requests for comment request has been left in dormancy for over a week now, so what are we going to do here? DarkMatterMan4500 (talk) (contribs) 15:09, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section