Hi all,
My apologies if this is the wrong place to start a discussion on this, but it's a better place than nowhere. I recently took part in two very different Wikipedia workshops -- one in Uganda for schoolchildren aged 14-17, and one Bodø, Norway, for GLAM people aged 35-55. One glaringly obvious barrier of entry that was common for both groups is that the CAPTCHA we use is too freaking hard.
The main concern is obviously that it is really hard to read, but there are also some other issues, namely that all the fields in the user registration form (except for the username) are wiped if you enter the CAPTCHA incorrectly. So when you make a mistake, not only do you have to re-type a whole new CAPTCHA (where you may make another mistake), you also have to re-type the password twice *and* your e-mail address. This takes a long time, especially if you're not a fast typer (which was the case for the first group), or if you are on a tablet or phone (which was the case for some in the second group).
So I would like to start a discussion about changing to a CAPTCHA that is more user-friendly, and hopefully one that isn't as English/Latin-alphabet-centric as the one we currently use. If Ugandan children and old Norwegian people, which all use the Latin alphabet, have such problems deciphering the CAPTCHA, what about people speaking languages that don't use the Latin alphabet? I would prefer something more simplistic, like some sort of math or image-based CAPTCHA, instead of the current CAPTCHA we use.