Return to Answer

There's also an official statement as to the rate at which they appear, made by Jeff Atwood on 'How often do captchas appear?' at MSO:

There's also an official statement as to the rate at which they appear, made by Jeff Atwood on 'How often do captchas appear?' at MSO:

some captchas are more difficult than others :)

• Most importantly: Gain reputation

• Think about how your posts look to the robots, think about:

  • External links (tinyurls, obscure blogs, your own website, ...)

  • Phrases like "Thanks" or "me too" in answers

  • Length of content (esp. regarding very short answers)

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while editing /  answering

 

 
• The minimum window is 5 seconds
 
• The maximum window is 40 minutes
 

 

There is a maximum of  

 

 
• one edit every 30 seconds
 
• one answer every 60 seconds
 
• one question every 60 seconds
 

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while doing  performing other actions, there are  throttles of various sizes depending  on the action -- it's mostly a "slow down" speed bump to inhibit  potentially dangerous "I'm going to  post obscene things as fast as  possible!" situations.

 

edit: some new reductions in CAPTCHA  throttle thresholds, if you have > 10k rep:

 

 
• for edits -- reduced by two-thirds
 
• for post submission times -- min seconds reduced by one half, max  minutes increased by x2
 

 

edit: assuming you are a logged in  user and have >= 200 reputation: after  successfully completing one captcha,  we now suppress captcha for 5 minutes  on your account.

There's lots of speculation about captchas, like "do captchas get harder/easier over time?", I'm going to boldly attribute all of them to Confirmation Bias. As you rightly point out, this kind of system is basically designed to be wrong very often, so that it can be right when it matters.

some captchas are more difficult than others :)

• Most importantly: Gain reputation

   

• Think about how your posts look to the robots, think about:

  • External links (tinyurls, obscure blogs, your own website, ...)

     

  • Phrases like "Thanks" or "me too" in answers

     

  • Length of content (esp. regarding very short answers)

     
   

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while editing /  answering

 

 
• The minimum window is 5 seconds
 
• The maximum window is 40 minutes
 

 

There is a maximum of

 

 
• one edit every 30 seconds
 
• one answer every 60 seconds
 
• one question every 60 seconds
 

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while doing  performing other actions, there are  throttles of various sizes depending  on the action -- it's mostly a "slow down" speed bump to inhibit  potentially dangerous "I'm going to  post obscene things as fast as  possible!" situations.

 

edit: some new reductions in CAPTCHA  throttle thresholds, if you have > 10k rep:

 

 
• for edits -- reduced by two-thirds
 
• for post submission times -- min seconds reduced by one half, max  minutes increased by x2
 

 

edit: assuming you are a logged in  user and have >= 200 reputation: after  successfully completing one captcha,  we now suppress captcha for 5 minutes  on your account.

There's lots of speculation about captchas, like "do captchas get harder/easier over time?", I'm going to boldly attribute all of them to Confirmation Bias. As you rightly point out, this kind of system is basically designed to be wrong very often, so that it can be right when it matters.

some captchas are more difficult than others :)

• Most importantly: Gain reputation

   

• Think about how your posts look to the robots, think about:

  • External links (tinyurls, obscure blogs, your own website, ...)

     

  • Phrases like "Thanks" or "me too" in answers

     

  • Length of content (esp. regarding very short answers)

     
   

There's also an official statement as to the rate at which they appear, made by Jeff Atwood on 'How often do captchas appear?' at MSO:

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while editing /  answering

 

 
• The minimum window is 5 seconds
 
• The maximum window is 40 minutes
 

 

There is a maximum of

 

 
• one edit every 30 seconds
 
• one answer every 60 seconds
 
• one question every 60 seconds
 

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while doing  performing other actions, there are  throttles of various sizes depending  on the action -- it's mostly a "slow down" speed bump to inhibit  potentially dangerous "I'm going to  post obscene things as fast as  possible!" situations.

 

edit: some new reductions in CAPTCHA  throttle thresholds, if you have > 10k rep:

 

 
• for edits -- reduced by two-thirds
 
• for post submission times -- min seconds reduced by one half, max  minutes increased by x2
 

 

edit: assuming you are a logged in  user and have >= 200 reputation: after  successfully completing one captcha,  we now suppress captcha for 5 minutes  on your account.

There's lots of speculation about captchas, like "do captchas get harder/easier over time?", I'm going to boldly attribute all of them to Confirmation Bias. As you rightly point out, this kind of system is basically designed to be wrong very often, so that it can be right when it matters.

some captchas are more difficult than others :)

• Most importantly: Gain reputation

• Think about how your posts look to the robots, think about:

  • External links (tinyurls, obscure blogs, your own website, ...)

  • Phrases like "Thanks" or "me too" in answers

  • Length of content (esp. regarding very short answers)

There's also an official statement as to the rate at which they appear, made by Jeff Atwood on 'How often do captchas appear?' at MSO:

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while editing /  answering

 

 
• The minimum window is 5 seconds
 
• The maximum window is 40 minutes
 

 

There is a maximum of 

 

 
• one edit every 30 seconds
 
• one answer every 60 seconds
 
• one question every 60 seconds
 

 

To trigger CAPTCHA while doing  performing other actions, there are  throttles of various sizes depending  on the action -- it's mostly a "slow down" speed bump to inhibit  potentially dangerous "I'm going to  post obscene things as fast as  possible!" situations.

 

edit: some new reductions in CAPTCHA  throttle thresholds, if you have > 10k rep:

 

 
• for edits -- reduced by two-thirds
 
• for post submission times -- min seconds reduced by one half, max  minutes increased by x2
 

 

edit: assuming you are a logged in  user and have >= 200 reputation: after  successfully completing one captcha,  we now suppress captcha for 5 minutes  on your account.

There's lots of speculation about captchas, like "do captchas get harder/easier over time?", I'm going to boldly attribute all of them to Confirmation Bias. As you rightly point out, this kind of system is basically designed to be wrong very often, so that it can be right when it matters.