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I'm getting far too many Captchas when I attempt to edit my posts after noticing an error after having just posted them. This highly discourages fixes. Moreover it greatly penalizes those users who suffer from RSI and related problems. I've had to defeat over 10 captcha's in the past few hours. That's a bit ridiculous. I could've spent that wasted time much more productively.

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    $\begingroup$ SIGH I had to prove I was human to simply post this! $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Nov 13, 2010 at 19:50
  • $\begingroup$ Great points, I hope they consider this seriously. Also, I hope my upvote on your comment is not in bad taste. :D $\endgroup$
    – BBischof
    Nov 13, 2010 at 20:47

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I agree. It is very very annoying. Especially for frequent edits of the same post.

Can you imagine a spam bot posting something, and then trying to correct it?

I do agree we need it for frequently posted questions/answers.

Once you cross the 10K mark, it will become a bit better, as the software reduces the Captcha. (Sorry, don't have the link).

Given the rate at which you post high quality answers, I am not really sure you are human though :-)

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Once you solve a Captcha, as long as you have 200+ rep, you are immune to further captchas for a 5 minute period.

And as Moron mentioned, at the 10k mark we cut the thresholds in half.

That said, it is true that very rapid activities are those that tend to trigger the bot detection.

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    $\begingroup$ @Jeff: But do you think it is good that I had to solve over 10 captcha's in a few hours? I've been on the net for over a few decades in many different forums and never had to deal with such nonsense before. Surely you can come up with a better model that doesn't penalize heavy/quick contributors. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Nov 13, 2010 at 23:29
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah, Bill's right; why can't the thresholds be reduced to 2k or something? Presumably, once you have that amount of rep, you aren't likely to suddenly start spamming to high heaven... $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Nov 14, 2010 at 1:05
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    $\begingroup$ @bill it's unusual to trigger it as often as you are describing; can you characterize your workflow in more detail? (Also, you're so close to the 10k threshold that this may not be an issue for you much longer..) $\endgroup$
    – Jeff Atwood
    Nov 14, 2010 at 1:26
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    $\begingroup$ @Jeff: if you post the bot-detection formulas, there are users here with the ability to advise you on better and less annoying algorithms. $\endgroup$
    – T..
    Nov 15, 2010 at 19:29
  • $\begingroup$ @bill I think there might be something wrong with your browser or network configuration if you're running into the captcha that much. It's simply a non-issue for the massive amount of traffic we get on, say, Stack Overflow. It barely comes up these days. $\endgroup$
    – Jeff Atwood
    Nov 16, 2010 at 2:30
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    $\begingroup$ On the flip side, I don't think posting those algorithms (publicly, at least) are a good idea; certainly, someone with malicious intent can then (atttempt to) construct a way to defeat them. $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Nov 16, 2010 at 3:42
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    $\begingroup$ @jeff: I highly doubt it has anything to do with configs. I simply work in quick spurts, and often revise my posts, adding afterthoughts, etc. The current capctha thresholds make this very painful, both psychologically and physically (rsi, eyestrain, etc). I've faced more captcha's here than anywhere else combined over my entire life. Don't you have any human factors folks on your staff? $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Nov 16, 2010 at 4:27
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    $\begingroup$ @J.M.: Security by obscurity is known to be a bad idea. I don't know if that applies to bot-detection algorithms as well, but it's somewhat telling. $\endgroup$
    – user856
    Nov 16, 2010 at 7:26
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    $\begingroup$ @Jeff: Perhaps you could increase the immunity period to an hour or so? I imagine it would help Bill's frequent editing, which I don't think is unusual (I do it a lot too, though I've never faced the Captcha here). $\endgroup$
    – user856
    Nov 16, 2010 at 7:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Jeff: Since this thread has been locked (why???), I have elaborated on my answer to your above query here. Please take a moment to consider the points raised there. $\endgroup$
    – Bill Dubuque
    Nov 16, 2010 at 17:20

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