Visual CAPTCHA Blocks Entry

Below find a blog entry from one of Maine's newspaper syndicates "Mainetoday.com".  I was the reader who sent the Email mentioned below.  We can not respond to this blog if visual captcha denies us, as it does here.
 
We must Email the editor who then changes or edits our words --- somewhat defeating the purpose of a blog.  
If this business "Mainetoday" sells advertisements and presents materials to the public shouldn't it respond to a question of accessability in an ADA oriented fashion?  Or is it that the Web isn't covered by the ADA??  This debate seems to have some stubborn element of Anti ADA bias.  Wonder if they need to hear from more folks.
 
 
 ----I am but one voice in the wilderness!  
 ************** from http://mainebusiness.mainetoday.com/blogs/rbrooks/022671.html
 
Rich Brooks is president offlyte new media,a Web site design and Internet marketing company in Portland.
February 21, 2008
Is Your Web Site or Blog Discriminating Against the Disabled?
Yesterday I received an email from a reader of this blog. On a post calledFive Secrets to Promoting Your Business BlogI included a recommendation to post to influential blogs in your niche.
Why didn't he just leave a comment? Read on...
The reader responded that one barrier to leaving comments on blogs is the use ofCAPTCHAs--those annoying, messy boxes of alpha-numerics that are supposed to separate the people from the machines. Unfortunately, they can be an impenetrable barrierto people with disabilities. More unfortunately, MaineBusiness.com, which hosts this blog, uses CAPTCHA to prevent comment spam on their site. (So doesTypePad,which powers my other blog,flyte blog: web marketing strategies for small business.)
The reader mentioned that census figures show 20% of the population are somehow disabled; obviously, not all of the would be stopped by a CAPTCHA, but whywould you use a tool that stops the voice of your reader and quiets the conversation on your site?
Obviously, there's a very good reason for using CAPTCHAs. They help stem the tide of comment spam generated by computers. Spammers use computers to sendout an infinite, unending stream of spam to online forms for a variety of reasons. These spams reduce the signal to noise ratio, clog the tubes of theInternet, and reduce everyone's productivity.
New CAPTCHA tools often give people alternatives to those messy alphanumerics. Sometimes there's also an audio option (the computer will read you the answerand you type it in) or a simple math problem (what is 2 + 0) that these spam bots haven't yet caught up with.
Regardless, it's an ongoing battle between keeping communication flowing while keeping noise out. In arecent post,I talked about some of the benefits I've seen by using some non-CAPTCHA tools on online forms. However, ultimately spammers will figure those out as well.
We are in an arms race with the spammers, and of course there are innocent bystanders that are getting hurt, or at least disenfranchised.
There's no right answer on how to handle the balance of reducing incoming spam and keeping the lines of communication open with any human who wants to bepart of the conversation. Each company, each Web site owner, and each blogger needs to make their own decision.
What have you found that works for you?
Richcaptcha
Posted byRich Brooksat 12:36 PM
posting from Emma's Family FarmWindsor Maine;Steve Hoad
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