[Kalium]

How, in your opinion, should Google have handled the matter in a way that does not give spammers or other abusive users ways to get around the measure? Bear in mind that any such approach has to be scalable to many zeros daily, the vast majority of which will not be empathically awful cases like your brother's very real pain and distress - most will be genuinely abusive behavior.

I want to be clear that I am not attempting to minimize your brother's pain or emotional suffering. I'm hoping that there might be an approach that's kinder and more compassionate to him while still accomplishing the same goals.

[jjoonathan]

> the vast majority of which will not be empathically awful

Yeah, most of the time it's "just" really, really obnoxious, not to mention coercive in a way that aligns with Google's interests.

Thanks, Google.

> How, in your opinion, should Google have handled the matter in a way that does not give spammers or other abusive users ways to get around the measure?

"Our anti-spam systems believe that you might be a robot. Your profile has been locked for (x) minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience. Go _here_ to learn tips & tricks for avoiding lockouts in the future." X gets exponentially ramped.

Note how vague the message is. It sacrifices the opportunity to tarpit a really dumb robot in exchange for not being awful to humans.

Based on ReCAPTCHA's design decisions, it's abundantly clear that eeking out every sliver of a percent of marginal efficacy is the priority over treating users humanely. That's why I have a problem with ReCAPTCHA.

[Kalium]

In my opinion and experience, ReCAPTCHA isn't really, really obnoxious most of the time. I suspect that most of the time it trips up bots who have no emotional experiences whatsoever. Most of my personal encounters with it involve solving no puzzles whatsoever. With that in mind, I expect humans and their completely real reactions might not be the default case. Of course, this is speculative, as I do not have any kind of special data on the subject.

Thank you for sharing! Have you considered the possibility that presenting any message at all - especially one with a clear block time - is sending a very clear message to bot controllers? I'm sure you've considered this, and I am just failing to understand. Wouldn't that remove any real gains from being vague with tips & tricks?

Wouldn't there also be the real chance that vague tips & tricks would leave an actual human being in tears, convinced that they're just too dumb to understand them properly?

[jjoonathan]

> I suspect that most of the time it trips up bots who have no emotional experiences whatsoever.

I'll bite: maybe it's good at identifying obedient drones and letting them through :)

It trips up the normies in my life often enough that I suspect being technically inclined is actually a net advantage because it makes you quick to detect the problem and quick to apply workarounds. Those advantages are significant enough to outweigh even the cost of the semi-regular dance where I try to protect myself and Google jerks my chain.

> Have you considered

The fact that I phrased my proposal as a tradeoff should have strongly hinted that I did, in fact, consider.

> Wouldn't that remove any real gains from being vague with tips & tricks?

One bit of information -- locked vs not -- is hardly the same as disclosing the inner workings, or even the information inputs, of the classifier, and smart botters have access to that bit of information anyway because they've built a gaslight detector by leveraging their legions of diverse bots and endless supply of dirt cheap human labor.

Gaslighting humans is really bad. A minimal courtesy would only cost a sliver of efficacy, and ReCAPTCHA still rejects it. That decision earns it the bad will directed its way.

[thewebcount]

> In my opinion and experience, ReCAPTCHA isn't really, really obnoxious most of the time.

Do you use any sort of privacy protection while browsing? I do a few simple things like browse in private mode by default, and ReCAPTCHA just cannot deal with it. It instantly brands my connections as a bot. It is obnoxious. Using private mode shouldn't ban you from the web. There's no reason that most web sites need to save data on my computer to identify me later.

[Kalium]

That's an excellent question! I can, and do, routinely use privacy protections when browsing.

I have not found them to ban me from the web. I'm sorry that has happened to you.

[close04]

> In my opinion and experience, ReCAPTCHA isn't really, really obnoxious most of the time.

The percentage of that time goes up as you move away from Chrome and Google cookies.

[Kalium]

I don't think Chrome has ever been my daily driver.

That said, I also expect to be treated with more suspicion when I behave more like a bot. So I'm neither surprised nor bothered when Firefox Private gets me an uptick in ReCAPTCHAs. I understand that this is a highly unusual expectation.