[arch-general] Forum registration requires INSANE captcha.

[Bigby James]

On Tue, Feb 11, 2014 at 08:27:15AM -0800, Curtis Shimamoto wrote:
> On 02/11/14 at 10:11am, Bigby James wrote:
> > On Mon Feb 10 12:20:45 EST 2014 Kyle wrote:
> > > I'll take a little frustration of non-linux using normal
> > > human beings over a captcha that completely excludes visually impaired
> > > normal human beings any day.
> > 
> > I can understand your concern and applaud your consideration, but which of those
> > two groups do you suppose would flood the forums if the barrier to entry were
> > lowered? Let's be frank: The number of visually impaired users is, always has
> > been and always will be outstripped by the number of help vampires. If a
> > visually impaired Arch user needs help with a complex setup, that user can still
> > consult the wiki and mailing list without the same barrier present on the
> > forums, as anyone who's used all three can attest. I don't know what solutions
> > (if any) exist for IRC users who are visually impaired, but that's a third
> > option. 
> > 
> > Really, what you're talking about here is letting in an unwanted majority to
> > avoid upsetting an otherwise acceptable, but extremely miniscule minority.
> > There's no simple solution to such a conundrum, but there are multiple avenues
> > of communication in the Arch community. There just seems to be something about
> > online BBS that attracts the intellectually lazy in a manner that other online
> > communication media do not.
> 
> I think you've missed what Kyle is saying here.  From what I understand
> (as a non-blind user), traditional captchas that are super hard to read
> and easily deciphered by computers are what tend to not be usable by the
> visually impaired. 
> 
> The captcha that we currently have should be great for the visually
> impaired using some of the available linux tools such as espeakup.
> 
> -- 
> Curtis Shimamoto

You're right--after reading his post again, it looks like I misread it the first
time. Most captchas I see nowadays have a button for vocalization, which is what
I thought he was suggesting. Thanks for clearing that up.