Hi all together,

first of all: If you don't use ConfirmEdit with the ReCaptcha (NOT the ReCaptchaNoCaptcha) module, you can STOP reading here :)

TL;DR

Please upgrade to the ReCaptchaNoCaptcha module to use a supported version in the future and please respond to [1], if you've an opinion about the deprecation/removal plan(s).

Long version:

As you may know, ConfirmEdit[2] (the MediaWiki extension that helps you to fight against spam) supports different CAPTCHA modules, such as a MathCaptcha (where the user has to solve a math problem) or QuestyCaptcha (where the user has to answer a pre-defined question). Another module is Google's ReCaptcha[3][4], in both versions, the old v1 and the newer v2 (also called NoCaptcha). In December 2014, Google announced a new version of the ReCaptcha CAPTCHA-service, called ReCaptcha NoCaptcha (or ReCaptcha v2). ConfirmEdit currently supports both versions, as Google did the same until recently. Now, as you can read on the FAQ page of ReCaptcha[5], Google stopped supporting the v1 of ReCaptcha. This means, that no new features are developed and that new keys registered for ReCaptcha will work with the new version 2 only. This let me come to the conclusion, that ReCaptcha v1 will not be supported by Google at all anymore in the near future. In order of this, we should ask our self, how long we want to support the old ReCaptcha module in ConfirmEdit (which, compared to the NoCaptcha module, _seems_ to be less effective). The mid-term plan is clear: remove the old ReCaptcha module. Now there are two ways to achieve this:

* Deprecate the old reCaptcha in Version 1.27 of MediaWiki (would be a so called backport) and remove it in the upcoming 1.28 release * Deprecate the old reCaptcha in the upcoming Version 1.28 of MediaWiki and remove it:

* in MediaWiki 1.29 or * when Google doesn't support the old reCaptcha anymore

Because this is a huge problem for existing third-party wikis (and because we don't have any usage statistics), I'm not sure, which plan we should choose. That's why I sent this e-mail out, to get (hopefully) some responses and opinions.

So, the call-to-Action: If you still use the old ReCaptcha module, please plan to upgrade to the new version 2 of ReCaptcha as soon as possible and let us know (the best way is a comment in the task[1]), if you need the old ReCaptcha version supported as long as Google supports it, or if you're fine with removing it in the upcoming 1.28 release of MediaWiki.

To be absolutely clear: The ReCaptcha module will be removed, the only question is when: in MediaWiki 1.28 or in MediaWiki 1.29.

If you've any questions, feel free to answer to this e-mail, add a comment to the linked task, contact me in IRC or write me an e-mail (if you need a private conversation).

Thanks for your attention and for using ConfirmEdit!

Best,

Florian

[1] https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T142133

[2] https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:ConfirmEdit

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReCAPTCHA

[4] https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/index.html

[5] https://developers.google.com/recaptcha/docs/faq