h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

In Greece, you get your clothes whiter than white using a miracle washing powder called Eureka...

I only got hit by the Captcha bug once todsy. Once again I got around it by removing a link to a Turkish website.

Today, on the other hand, I'm not allowed make any changes.

Maybe it's controlled by Armenians.

Are they the same as the Blue Armeanies in "Yellow Submarine?"

[Sorry, that was a joke. ]

Talking of yellow submarine jokes, I used to work with a guy called Norman Ware. We nicknamed him Nor-Ware Man.

Good one!

I've deleted my entries on Mimar Sinan, the Chief Architect of the Ottoman Emipre, and How to Play the Greek Bouzouki from the site, since I am no longer able to edit either of them.

I'm sorry to hear that, Gnomon.

Me too. I spend a lot of time writing an entry, and the system leads me on by allowing me to edit it. Then I reach the point where it is nearly ready and Captcha changes its mind and starts rejecting it.

I quit. I'm quite happy to write stuff but I'm prevented from doing so. It is just too frustrating to make it worthwhile anymore.

This bodes poorly for the site.

I haven't seen any significant signs of improvement in the last year. I still love this place and I hate feeling like it's being abandoned by users and those behind the scenes as well.

I know the Editors take this seriously. I've been contacted by one of the owners of the site. But no progress yet.

Cool Old Guy on his head
"I wonder how most other Researchers can live with that silly .

I am online for no more then 72 hours, have written about 7 entries,
and the /^!#!\|# Captcha already starts ruining my work.


It is about the 4th time I added something to an entry as it required me to read some vague numbers, confirmed I did a good job then requested me to copy a load of nonsense (byebye paste buffer), just to present me with a blank page. (I have scripting _off_ on this computer.)"

It's a bug, as far as I can tell.

Cool Old Guy on top
"It is not an ! It is a , it swallowed my entry!

I know I would be cought but not this soon on such tiny entry < A87853035 >. I did not use any 'strange' signs nor strange words. "

Cool Old Guy confused
"Using XP and FF I could not change a jilt on the entry for the Captcha to hit.
Concidering it was as suggested an IP block I hesitated to try another system.

On the Captcha page there is a suggestion about the system possibly being infected. This gave me the idea to try if another OS might do the trick.

Switching to Debian and IceWeasel I could change the whole part with no Captcha at all. .

Still no solution only another workaround. "

IceWeasel? I like the sound of that.

So how is this a practical workaround?

It's not a practical workaround.

Captcha keeps a record of which connections it considers suspicious. The more editing you do, the more suspicious it gets. If you continue editing on Debian, Captcha will soon treat that connection with the same level of suspicion as the other one, and will start rejecting entries there.

I have three separate machines that I do editing on, and one of them rarely gets past the Captcha. Another does occasionally, and the third is generally OK, but it is my phone where large-scale editing is virtually impossible, which is why I rarely edit on it and why the Captcha doesn't mind it.

Does anyone know if Everything2.com is a good place for publishing entries? It looks welcoming at first sight, but I don't know much about it. I might publish my work there, since this place is not getting fixed.

I've been waiting literally years for the bugs in h2g2 to be fixed to the level that I could actually recommend it to a friend. It doesn't look like this is ever going to happen. The only thing that has been stopping me from leaving in the past was that I couldn't find anywhere else to go.