Expert: Katie - 1/20/2007

Question
Hi Katie,
I have tried to contact you several times the past day, and have been frustrated by SPAM Guard. Either the image is so obscure as to be less than accurately readable, or my Internet explore program will crash when I try to enter the characters in the box. I have experienced this before and I believe informed you about it. It makes me wonder how many questioners have given up on the service because of experiencing what I have experienced. Is this feature really necessary?

Answer
We've reprogrammed the more obscure SPAM guard images to make them easier to guess. No one else has complained about the program crashing their browser. The number of answered questions per day has actually doubled since we added the feature, since volunteers no longer get "maxed out" with junk mail. The SPAM guard does more good than harm so it's here to stay. I wish it wasn't necessary either but we had to choose between the least of 2 evils. ;)