[Mailman-Users] Automated Subscription Bots Inundating List Owners With Subscription Requests

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Lindsay Haisley writes:

 > Take a look at <http://areyouahuman.com/>.

I just tried their sample.  I'd rather face a CAPTCHA!  And their
twitter feed reads like spam -- same comments, same apparent author,
different avatar.  Not a great start if they want to captcha my lists! 
;-)

Seriously, I can see how it would work if they got the human factors
right.  Also seriously, do they have an accessible alternative?  (No
less than three of the people who currently aren't on my list that I
wish were on it are somewhere between totally blind and "visually
challenged".)  And of course nothing visual works if you use a text
browser.

In general, it's still a stopgap.  Requiring a test is offensive to
real people.  If you want to live only in meatspace (and be
untrackable in the virtual world), I guess that's unavoidable.  But
for the vast majority of people, they just want to have an ID they can
use to sign up anywhere, without being treated like the spamming
equivalent of HIV.