[Web4lib] Spam-resistant forms service

[John Fereira]

K.G. Schneider wrote:
>> W3C has a pretty good discussion <http://www.w3.org/TR/turingtest/> of
>> this accessibility problem, and, if you decide to use CAPTCHA, the
>> Wikipedia article <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha> is also
>> informative, especially the directory of CAPTCHA implementations, with a
>> variety of choices based on what programming environment is in use.
>>     
>
> Thanks, the accessibility issue did have me concerned about captchas, though
> as I thought about Thomas D's "cognitive" suggestion, I wonder if the audio
> link couldn't be a simple, brief podcast that provided information on
> alternate access methods. It's not as if it had to change very often. E.g.
> "Please email us at [very clearly read email address]." 
>
> I'd still like a cognitive test that ferreted out real estate websites from
> content we would actually use, but that's another story. ;-) 
>   
I like the mechanism that the jroller blog software uses.  Take a look 
at www.jroller.com and select any of the "Recent Postings at JRoller".  
Look at the bottom of the comment form.    A form element is displayed 
with a question such as: 

Please answer this simple math question

7 + 46 = 

The numbers can randomly generated and the answer calculated each time 
the form is displayed and stored in the session.  When the form is 
submitted, the value in the form is tested against the correct answer.