I see that there's an active workboard in Phabricator at https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/225/ for CAPTCHA issues.
Returning to a subject that has been discussed several times before: the last I heard is that our current CAPTCHAs do block some spambots, but they also present problems for humans and aren't especially difficult for more sophisticated spambots to solve. Can someone share a general update on what's happening with regard to improving usability for humans and increasing the difficulty for bots? I'm particularly concerned about the former issue, since CAPTCHAs might be filtering out some good-faith human editors.
Thanks,
Pine
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
what's happening with regard to improving usability for humans and increasing the difficulty for bots?
Generally speaking, isnt that an open problem in computer science?
-- Bawolff
Brian,
Quite likely. (: But the Wikimedia CAPTCHA workboard suggests a lack of emphasis on improving the general CAPTCHA situation for Wikimedia. The two high priority tasks on that Phabricator workboard last received comments in May and June. Those dates, plus the relative quiet on this mailing list, suggest that there could be higher priority placed on CAPTCHA improvements. I will discuss this with Luis on his talk page.
Thanks, Pine On Aug 18, 2015 11:43 PM, "Brian Wolff" bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
what's happening with regard to improving usability for humans and increasing the difficulty for bots?
Generally speaking, isnt that an open problem in computer science?
-- Bawolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Just for the record, this is not a matter for my talk page. I don't encourage using my talk page either to circumvent existing prioritization processes, or to try to resolve deeply complex CS questions. ;) Wikitech (or perhaps Phabricator, depending on the team) is a much more appropriate place than any one individual's talk page to try to adjust department or team-level prioritization, especially when it is someone who isn't even in that department.
Luis
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 12:34 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Brian,
Quite likely. (: But the Wikimedia CAPTCHA workboard suggests a lack of emphasis on improving the general CAPTCHA situation for Wikimedia. The two high priority tasks on that Phabricator workboard last received comments in May and June. Those dates, plus the relative quiet on this mailing list, suggest that there could be higher priority placed on CAPTCHA improvements. I will discuss this with Luis on his talk page.
Thanks, Pine On Aug 18, 2015 11:43 PM, "Brian Wolff" bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
what's happening with regard to improving usability for humans and increasing the difficulty for bots?
Generally speaking, isnt that an open problem in computer science?
-- Bawolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
The subject sounds exactly like the reCAPTCHA < https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html%3E tagline. Not sure how beneficial the project would be but I have seen it used. Maybe worth looking into. Thanks, Negative24
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 2:04 AM Luis Villa lvilla@wikimedia.org wrote:
Just for the record, this is not a matter for my talk page. I don't encourage using my talk page either to circumvent existing prioritization processes, or to try to resolve deeply complex CS questions. ;) Wikitech (or perhaps Phabricator, depending on the team) is a much more appropriate place than any one individual's talk page to try to adjust department or team-level prioritization, especially when it is someone who isn't even in that department.
Luis
On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 12:34 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Brian,
Quite likely. (: But the Wikimedia CAPTCHA workboard suggests a lack of emphasis on improving the general CAPTCHA situation for Wikimedia. The
two
high priority tasks on that Phabricator workboard last received comments
in
May and June. Those dates, plus the relative quiet on this mailing list, suggest that there could be higher priority placed on CAPTCHA
improvements.
I will discuss this with Luis on his talk page.
Thanks, Pine On Aug 18, 2015 11:43 PM, "Brian Wolff" bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On Tuesday, August 18, 2015, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
what's happening with regard to improving usability for humans and increasing the difficulty for bots?
Generally speaking, isnt that an open problem in computer science?
-- Bawolff _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Luis Villa Sr. Director of Community Engagement Wikimedia Foundation *Working towards a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.* _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On 08/19/2015 10:17 PM, Jamison Lofthouse wrote:
The subject sounds exactly like the reCAPTCHA < https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html%3E tagline. Not sure how beneficial the project would be but I have seen it used. Maybe worth looking into.
Unfortunately, we can not use reCAPTCHA because it is proprietary software.
I agree this is an important issue. It just isn't resourced right now by the WMF, as far as I know.
Matt Flaschen
Hi,
On Thu, Aug 20, 2015 at 8:06 AM, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 08/19/2015 10:17 PM, Jamison Lofthouse wrote:
The subject sounds exactly like the reCAPTCHA < https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html%3E tagline. Not sure how beneficial the project would be but I have seen it used. Maybe worth looking into.
Unfortunately, we can not use reCAPTCHA because it is proprietary software.
ReCAPTCHA is available for MediaWiki but, as Matt says, using it in Wikimedia servers is another story. In your own wiki, it will be quite effective dealing with your average spammer. See https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit#ReCaptcha
For what is worth, there have been attempts to improve our captchas, and at some point we even had GSoC students interested, but lack of common technical vision and lack of mentors didn't allow us to move forward. See
Prototype CAPTCHA optimized for multilingual and mobile https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T64960
also
Implement, Review and Deploy Wikicaptcha https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T34695
Create a CAPTCHA that is also a useful micro edit https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87598
On 19 August 2015 at 23:06, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
I agree this is an important issue. It just isn't resourced right now by the WMF, as far as I know.
Indeed. There have been numerous discussions about the captcha on this mailing list over the past few years, but no progress because this issue just isn't being worked on by anyone.
Dan
On 8/25/15, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 19 August 2015 at 23:06, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
I agree this is an important issue. It just isn't resourced right now by the WMF, as far as I know.
Indeed. There have been numerous discussions about the captcha on this mailing list over the past few years, but no progress because this issue just isn't being worked on by anyone.
Dan
Well there's that, but its also because its very unclear what "we" actually want and how we would get there.
Make captchas not suck, well a great goal, is not an action plan in itself.
-- -bawolff
Hi, just checking to see if CAPTCHA improvements are likely anytime in the near future. I notice that https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/225/ shows nothing under "Awaiting code review". Is anyone working on this? If not, what kind of nudge would be necessary to get some resources devoted to CAPTCHA improvements?
Thanks, Pine
On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 6:48 PM, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/25/15, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 19 August 2015 at 23:06, Matthew Flaschen mflaschen@wikimedia.org wrote:
I agree this is an important issue. It just isn't resourced right now
by
the WMF, as far as I know.
Indeed. There have been numerous discussions about the captcha on this mailing list over the past few years, but no progress because this issue just isn't being worked on by anyone.
Dan
Well there's that, but its also because its very unclear what "we" actually want and how we would get there.
Make captchas not suck, well a great goal, is not an action plan in itself.
-- -bawolff
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Hey Pine,
Responses in-line.
On 9 December 2015 at 22:14, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, just checking to see if CAPTCHA improvements are likely anytime in the near future. I notice that https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/225/ shows nothing under "Awaiting code review". Is anyone working on this?
To the best of my knowledge, nobody is working on the CAPTCHA system right now.
If not, what kind of nudge would be necessary to get some resources devoted to CAPTCHA improvements?
The truthful but (presumably) unsatisfying answer is that you'd have to convince someone responsible for planning their team's work that working on the CAPTCHA is more important than what they had planned. That does not seem likely to happen right now.
Dan
Thanks. Perhaps some work on CAPTCHA could happen via a Project grant once there is a concrete proposal that's agreeable to the participants and WMF? Pinging Marti to ask about the possibility.
Pine
On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 10:46 PM, Dan Garry dgarry@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hey Pine,
Responses in-line.
On 9 December 2015 at 22:14, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi, just checking to see if CAPTCHA improvements are likely anytime in
the
near future. I notice that https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/225/ shows nothing under "Awaiting code review". Is anyone working on this?
To the best of my knowledge, nobody is working on the CAPTCHA system right now.
If not, what kind of nudge would be necessary to get some resources devoted to CAPTCHA improvements?
The truthful but (presumably) unsatisfying answer is that you'd have to convince someone responsible for planning their team's work that working on the CAPTCHA is more important than what they had planned. That does not seem likely to happen right now.
Dan
-- Dan Garry Lead Product Manager, Discovery Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 7:50 AM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks. Perhaps some work on CAPTCHA could happen via a Project grant once there is a concrete proposal that's agreeable to the participants and WMF? Pinging Marti to ask about the possibility.
Bccing Marti because a lot needs to happen before a CAPTCHA proposal gets under her attention for funding, and anyway decisions are made by the IEG committee of volunteers.
Our previous attempts to push CAPTCHA related projects as Possible-Tech-Projects https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/possible-tech-projects/ have failed because of lack of community consensus. Some failures were very bad, wasting significant candidates and mentor time preparing proposals that were discarded as invalid days before the submissions deadlines. If you or someone else wants to help effectively to the progress of captcha projects, the first step is to identify improvements or experiment worth investing for.
See for instance
Create a CAPTCHA that is also a useful micro edit https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T87598
which is Under Discussion at Possible-Tech-Projects. Pine, I bet that if you help getting community consensus for that task (or any other single one you prefer), that would be a more productive use of your time than trying to promote captcha improvements in general.
Jamison Lofthouse wrote:
The subject sounds exactly like the reCAPTCHA< https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html%3E tagline. Not sure how beneficial the project would be but I have seen it used. Maybe worth looking into. Thanks, Negative24
I should note that the latest reCAPTCHA¹ is actually *less* friendly. ¹ the “please select all images of foobars” version.
I don't think it should be considered as the “best solution” (for wikis where it's suitable to install), nor should we repeat their errors.
A small list:
1) It still has user assumptions based on 1a) language: the user must understand what a "foobar" is before he can select those², and they aren't always common use words, precisely.
1b) cultural: will the user easily discover all the photos expected to be coffee if that's not a common beverage on his country?
² no, the sample image³ is not enough to discern what they want. At least with the expected easiness.
³ confusing UI btw, since the naive assumption would be to expect you also had to tick it (which is disabled).
2) confusing images: Sometimes it's not clear what is depicted in the photograph. Not even being a human.
3) wrong images: Sometimes there are images that are not really foobars (suppose they are the similar barfoos), and thus *shouldn't* be marked as such. But according to recaptcha they are. (and your grudgingly selection of the barfoo in order to pass the captcha probably means that Google is performing a wrong training reinforcing their idea that it is indeed a foobar)
In terms of difficulty for humans I would score them as: images recaptcha > original reCaptcha > door numbers recaptcha > nocaptcha recaptcha
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org