Scratch-www: ReCaptcha many things

[apple502j]

To reduce spammers, we should recaptcha many things including:

• Making accounts
• Making new topics (for New Scratchers)
• Sharing the first project (for New Scratchers)
• Becoming Scratcher

[MasterOfTheTiger]

This would cause undue difficulty to many users. Rather, if there is a problem with spambots, scratch-www should use a spambot "honeypot", which doesn't inconvenience the legitimate users. In addition, relying on Google ReCapatcha is a bad idea as those who choose not to allow Google to access other websites in their browser will not be able to use Scratch.

[benjiwheeler]

There are certainly many good reasons to use some sort of CAPTCHA, and some usability concerns as well.

@apple502j, thanks for suggesting all of those various places we could add CAPTCHA. I hadn't thought of some of them.

@masterofthetiger, can you say more about what you mean about a "honeypot"?

[MasterOfTheTiger]

@MasterOfTheTiger, can you say more about what you mean about a "honeypot"?

@benjiwheeler
I don't know too much about the idea. Basically, instead of making a user prove themselves to be human, you set up a hidden form which the user can't see, but the spambot will fill it out, and you can tell it was a bot which filled it out and not an actual person.

You can find more info with a search engine. I found this useful article with a search for "spambot honeypots".

I believe honeypots are a good idea in that the user is not inconvenienced and bots are still caught.

[apple502j]

@MasterOfTheTiger

1. Recaptcha 3 does not need any user actions, unlike version 2.
2. You can use Recaptcha in China!