Re: wine users forum registration issue
Hi, On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 11:37:22AM -0400, WDDT(a)aol.com wrote:
Hi--
I'm a new user of linux and wine and was looking for some help with a database program that ALMOST runs. I found an entry on the forum with a problem similar to mine and wanted to comment, so I decided to register. Unfortunately, I was unable to get the sign-in page to recognize the characters I typed in. I tried several times, including case-matching and entering numbers on the number pad. In fact, I attempted it enough times to be ruled out as having tried too often. Is there an end-run to joining the forum or some magic insider voodoo in place to keep fogeys like me out? (Because I could USE some voodoo at this point with my database!) Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for your input! This is now about the 30th time (no, REALLY, this __IS__ the 30th time, or possibly even 50th!) that someone has severe issues with WineHQ forum registration, in the last 12 or so months. Could someone _please_ finally do something practical about it? Doing severe cross-posting to make sure this does get noticed, thanks. (I should be doing entirely different things ATM, but I simply cannot let this huge usability and mailbox clogging issue linger any longer, thus I'm escalating it, sorry) Thanks, Andreas Mohr
On Tuesday 21 October 2008 18:25:19 Andreas Mohr wrote:
This is now about the 30th time (no, REALLY, this __IS__ the 30th time, or possibly even 50th!) that someone has severe issues with WineHQ forum registration, in the last 12 or so months. Could someone _please_ finally do something practical about it?
Given that most people on this list don't seem to use the forum and thus don't notice, how about the people who actually use the forum get together and figure out a way to make it work? Alternatively, as was suggested before, we could ditch the forums and point people to the google groups interface for the wine-users list.
Doing severe cross-posting to make sure this does get noticed, thanks.
Have a cookie. Don't know why CCing wine-patches should help, unless you want patchwatcher to notice.
(I should be doing entirely different things ATM, but I simply cannot let this huge usability and mailbox clogging issue linger any longer, thus I'm escalating it, sorry)
Right. So the forum software is broken, and all of the Wine devs would rather fix Wine than the forums? Sounds like a good case for ditching the forums. Kai -- Kai Blin WorldForge developer http://www.worldforge.org/ Wine developer http://wiki.winehq.org/KaiBlin Samba team member http://www.samba.org/samba/team/ -- Will code for cotton.
Right. So the forum software is broken, and all of the Wine devs would rather fix Wine than the forums? Sounds like a good case for ditching the forums.
I disagree violently. The case for the forums is clear; users prefer them by a rather large amount. If we're going to provide user facing resources on winehq (which I, at least, intend to see happen), then I think the forums are the correct answer. However, with that said, some sort of captcha is a requirement on forums; they really suffer from automatic spam attacks. Does anyone know *why* these people suffer? Is there something specific to their monitor or is it just a general struggle with captchas? Finally, is there someone who would be willing to help users through this? The real problem is that all cries for help to web-admin (for any reason, not just this one) are being ignored. Cheers, Jeremy
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 07:19:46AM -0500, Jeremy White wrote:
Right. So the forum software is broken, and all of the Wine devs would rather fix Wine than the forums? Sounds like a good case for ditching the forums.
I disagree violently. The case for the forums is clear; users prefer them by a rather large amount.
If we're going to provide user facing resources on winehq (which I, at least, intend to see happen), then I think the forums are the correct answer.
However, with that said, some sort of captcha is a requirement on forums; they really suffer from automatic spam attacks.
Does anyone know *why* these people suffer? Is there something specific to their monitor or is it just a general struggle with captchas?
Hmm, I just tried registering. - first try failed with bad code, unsure why - second try too - third try ... showed me a captcha with 20 letters, some of them in the background... thanks. - fourth try I entered uppercase letters: the captcha seems to be case sensitive. Once entering upper case letters it worked. I would suggest a note "letters are case sensitive" might be in order. Ciao, Marcus
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 8:19 AM, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)winehq.org> wrote:
Does anyone know *why* these people suffer? Is there something specific to their monitor or is it just a general struggle with captchas?
Finally, is there someone who would be willing to help users through this? The real problem is that all cries for help to web-admin (for any reason, not just this one) are being ignored.
Cheers,
Jeremy
I'm with JWhite in that one bug with the forums is not the death knell of a different interface that has been successful for our users. I think this discussion has been beaten to death before on both devel and on users and it isn't appropriate to discuss now. Lets talk about how we can fix the problem at hand. Captchas in general are not so good, and there are much better anti-spam techniques out there (Such as asking an actual question. There are phpbb mods which allow you to input a list of questions (with perhaps links to wiki pages with answers) from which it'll chose a random one to present a user at registration. This is very simple for the user to get passed, just check the wiki for the answer to hopefully an obvious and perhaps informative question, and nearly impossible for the bots). So perhaps ditching the captcha in favor of something less error prone is in order? --Zach
Zachary Goldberg wrote:
On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 8:19 AM, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)winehq.org> wrote:
Does anyone know *why* these people suffer? Is there something specific to their monitor or is it just a general struggle with captchas?
Finally, is there someone who would be willing to help users through this? The real problem is that all cries for help to web-admin (for any reason, not just this one) are being ignored.
Cheers,
Jeremy
I'm with JWhite in that one bug with the forums is not the death knell of a different interface that has been successful for our users. I think this discussion has been beaten to death before on both devel and on users and it isn't appropriate to discuss now.
Lets talk about how we can fix the problem at hand.
Captchas in general are not so good, and there are much better anti-spam techniques out there (Such as asking an actual question. There are phpbb mods which allow you to input a list of questions (with perhaps links to wiki pages with answers) from which it'll chose a random one to present a user at registration. This is very simple for the user to get passed, just check the wiki for the answer to hopefully an obvious and perhaps informative question, and nearly impossible for the bots).
So perhaps ditching the captcha in favor of something less error prone is in order?
Not sure what they are complaining about - worked for me first time around. I think some people might have problems with: 1. Entering lower case text instead of caps 2. Not knowing (and not willing to find out) "who is the current maintainer". IMHO people should be able to figure those out with sufficient information and hints. And bots.. well they are not welcome on the forum anyway <g> Vitaliy.
Not sure what they are complaining about - worked for me first time around. I think some people might have problems with: 1. Entering lower case text instead of caps 2. Not knowing (and not willing to find out) "who is the current maintainer".
IMHO people should be able to figure those out with sufficient information and hints. And bots.. well they are not welcome on the forum anyway <g>
It took me about five tries to register for the forum several months ago. The reason is simple: aging eyesight. I have problems with captchas in general, but I have to say that some of the ones used for the forum are especially difficult to see because the background of the image also contains letters and number, and it is not always obvious which letters and numbers are supposed to be "right" ones. One thing I have found helpful on other sites that use captchas is the ability to click on a link to change the image if I can't decipher the one I'm presented with. The login page at www.thebox.bz is a good example of what I mean. I agree that the question about the current maintainer is probably part of the problem, but it's not necessarily that people don't know the answer--a simple typo will be interpreted as a wrong answer. I'm a teacher, and I sometimes give computer-graded quizzes, but when I do I avoid short answer/fill in the blank questions for precisely that reason. -- Rosanne DiMesio dimesio(a)earthlink.net
Not sure what they are complaining about - worked for me first time around. I think some people might have problems with: 1. Entering lower case text instead of caps
Well, I'll have Jer add a note to that effect right away. Can't hurt.
2. Not knowing (and not willing to find out) "who is the current maintainer".
This one, I think, may now be mostly solved. I think Jer made a lot of different things work as an answer and that seems to have reduced the people who miss this one. That does tend to argue against a rotating list of questions, as I don't want to have to tune each question. Bluntly, what we really need is for someone to care and to find out what the problem is, and perhaps to offer solutions. Cheers, Jeremy
participants (7)
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Andreas Mohr -
Jeremy White -
Kai Blin -
Marcus Meissner -
Rosanne DiMesio -
Vitaliy Margolen -
Zachary Goldberg