[Wikimedia-l] Editor retention (was Re: "Big data" benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices))

[Nikola Smolenski]

On 08/01/13 11:35, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
> Nikola Smolenski, 08/01/2013 10:30:
>> On 05/01/13 04:47, Tim Starling wrote:
>>> For example, requiring phone number verification for new users from
>>> developed countries would be less damaging.
>>
>> I don't see how is this supposed to help (and I don't think most new
>> users would want to do this; I certainly wouldn't).
>
> Not to say that it would be a good idea, but Google does it already and
> phone verification is probably less painful than our CAPTCHAs are to
> non-English users (https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5309 ).

It's not that it's painful, it's that I don't want various organizations 
to know my phone number.

> In general, as far as we know captchas are currently not stopping
> spammers at all, while effectively stopping many legitimate (less

Care to elaborate? Do we know how are spammers avoiding captchas (by 
software or by humans)? How come other websites don't have this problem?