I just wanted to help

It took me a good 20 minutes last night trying to create an account at Citysearch because I couldn't get past the point on the registration form where they ask you to look at an obscured graphic image of a word or character string and then type it into a web form to prove you're a human being, not a spam-generating bot. Sometimes it's an English word or phrase graphically warped. Sometimes it's a string of random numbers and letters in mixed case you're expected to duplicate exactly.

Such image call-and-response tests are called CAPTCHA, which apparently stands for (I shit you not) "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". They're used all over the web and present some difficulties for individuals who are blind or have difficulty seeing. Of course, they also present some difficulties for everyone when they're implemented idiotically.

Here's the image Citysearch asked me to use:



What would you type in?

I typed "GANGS" and was kicked back to the same form with an error message saying I'd got it wrong. I've seen this on other sites and, usually, they'll give you another, different image to decipher. Not here. I was still looking at the same thing. Thinking perhaps my fingers had fumbled, I typed "GANGS" again and was rejected again, this time with two error messages because, unnoticed by me, the return to the form had obliterated the password I'd typed in twice earlier.

And here I was stuck. I futilely typed "GANGS" again, got an error and sat there frustrated for a good five minutes. By now, I didn't even want to register at Citysearch, but it had become a challenge to see just what the implacable computer on the other end of the web wanted from me. Hmm, thought I. Perhaps—and this is incredibly stupid of them—they want me to type the spaces preceding the word too. So I tried successive variations including " GANGS" (one space), "  GANGS" (two spaces), "   GANGS" (three), and "    GANGS" (four).

No dice.

My final try before giving up and climbing in to bed was the winner. What did Citysearch expect me to type when confronted with the image above? "gangs"—yes, in lower case, despite the fact that every other instance of this procedure I've encountered on the web has conditioned me to attempt to duplicate the graphic text exactly. Citysearch wanted me do the opposite.

It is no wonder a good deal of the information on their site is significantly wrong or out of date. When well-intentioned folks like me try to log in and help them correct it, they're thwarted in their attempts and give up, consigning the site to irrelevancy.

Its enough to make you want to join a gang. Or more probably, a GANG.

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