Stumbleupon Now Using Captcha for Reviews
*Update* Israel reports that the captcha is only on some posts, but it’s been on all of mine so far.
A disturbing discovery while trying to stumble and review a site today. Stumbleupon is now using captcha!
With stumbleupon obviously being gamed by different website services, I suppose this was inevitable. I’ve heard of automated programs as well as “stumble hacks” going around. Adding Captcha helps stumbleupon stay more legit, but more annoying to use.
One of the biggest benefits of stumbleupon was the ease. Adding a toolbar, easy. “Thumbs up” on articles you like, simple. Reviewing the website or article that you like, not bad. Throwing captcha in the mix makes it a little more annoying to use.
If you aren’t sure what captcha is, it is the little box of words. You have to correctly type in the words in order for you to complete the action. In this case your captcha has to be correct in order to leave a review.
I never subject my readers to entering captcha to leave a comment or do anything. I’d rather manually delete spam etc. However that’s not possible with sites that are huge.
Enter Captcha
With captcha, reviews will decrease, it’s inevitable. I can only imagine the importance of reviews going up.
What do you think about the Captcha on Stumbleupon? Will it last? Are you done writing reviews?
27 Responses to “Stumbleupon Now Using Captcha for Reviews”
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March 13th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
I think this is a pretty smart idea. Shouldn’t affect the blogs that are deserving of good ratings, so where is the hurt? On the black-hat scheming blogs that don’t deserve the spotlight!
March 13th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
It was bound to happen, all the hackers and black hatters gaming it. It will most likely be implemented system wide.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Those are great insights that I agree with. I guess the blackhat etc, didn’t affect me directly so I didn’t care. Yet the captcha definitely slows down my stumbling.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
I think it’s a good idea. I’m sick and tired of certain types of people abusing the system, be it StumbleUpon, Entrecard, or whatever. I think this is a great idea, and a way of stopping those who abuse the privileges given to them by StumbleUpon. Boo hoo, someone has to type a few extra things, but honestly, it’s one extra step.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
It is all those blackhaters over at Digital Point. Things are changing, and not necessarily for the better.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
great comment sarah very true.
However I stumble a lot and get a lot of people looking for votes. Say I have 5 stumbles I want to comment on one after another… thats FIVE extra steps…
And I can never read those damn captcha things, so it will be 10 steps for me lol
March 13th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
If it keeps spammers away then that’s a good thing. But I guess one man’s meat is another man’s spam.
March 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
lol rhys ill have to remember that one
March 13th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
In my opinion, it sucks. I CANNOT read them. At all. I have never had that problem. I uusually comment a good deal but not, the captcha has stopped me a couple times. Also, I HATE the new comment page. It looks like a page that isn’t loaded completely. Why would you want your page to look like that????
March 13th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I think this is a good idea, but we’ll have to wait and see how it affects stumble traffic. most traffic comes from thumbs ups anyway…
March 13th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Captcha is the most effective means of keeping bots out and real people in. It will ultimately provide to be a positive for the site.
March 13th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Yeah it’s a pain in the ass
March 14th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I noticed this right away because I leave a LOT of reviews. It’s only on some sites, but it definitely made a difference for me to take that extra step.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Great article - I leave a lot of SU reviews and a few of them had this extra step yesterday. If I mistyped the word and it prompted me a second time (or a third time - sometimes I just don’t get what it says!) I would carry on and not bother… so yes, it will definitely reduce the number of reviews. But, I think it will mostly be a positive thing for the overall quality of posts and reviews. Sometimes you have to take the bad to get the good.
March 14th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Can’t blame them people have found ways to abuse the system which allows you to add your .com twice!
http://www.blogengage.com
cheers!
March 14th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
No Captcha ! What a pain. I was just leaving a comment on another blog and closed out because 2 tries and it said captcha wrong.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Anyone unable to see the captcha images or hear the video? I’m using the latest firefox, and it keeps telling me that I either don’t have javascript enabled, or have recaptcha.net blocked. neither’s true. I can’t review! BOO!
Help?
March 18th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Saw this today and at first thought I was on another social bookmarking site. It was inevitable and hopefully will improve quality and spamming. Just par for the course.
March 19th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
I have a lot of trouble with getting the captcha text right, though it seems to be implemented in different ways: the version you have above, delicious York, is easy to read.
Still, I can understand. StumbleUpon has been a very good tool for me and I won’t begrudge them the need to keep spam out.
Thanks for the update, Jim (chemrat)
March 20th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I just went to write a review, and couldn’t be bothered to submit it because of this. As usual, I couldn’t read the words properly, so I tried the audio version instead, but I couldn’t hear the numbers properly either. I know it’s designed to make it harder for a bot to pick up, but it makes it harder for this human, too. As the whole point of SU is it’s a trivia-based diversion, which is quick and fun to use, I don’t think I’ll be reviewing now they’ve added this extra verification. I never noticed a huge problem with spam anyway. True, there are many low quality and unhelpful reviews - but posted by people, not bots.
March 22nd, 2008 at 4:36 am
Well, reviews in SU will be extinct very soon. I HATE CAPTCHA. i really do.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Captcha isn’t helping over there. People are now being review bombed by bots, and nothing much is being done about it. Should have known it wouldn’t take them long to work around it.
April 17th, 2008 at 11:17 am
[…] Stumbleupon Now Using Captchas for Reviews […]
April 18th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Could be the death of stumble if they are not careful. But, they need to do something. If not this what?
May 2nd, 2008 at 7:05 pm
I won’t be reviewing any sites that require me to fill in captcha’s I think its a mistake by stumble.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:11 am
I have to say, I’ve almost completely stopped using Stumble since they implemented captcha. At first my noscript plugin was blocking it, but even after finally allowing the url it is still puts an extra step on there that just makes it a pain in the rear.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:27 am
For the people who think this is a smart idea:
You’re an idiot.
Captcha is VERY annoying in websites. Sometimes they’re hard to read because apparently, to prevent spam you have to figure out how to read squished words.
Others, they’re easy to do, but still annoying. Takes away ease of use.
Great job, StumbleApon.