Compare: "security labels in clothing are a way of announcing to the world that you've got a theft problem, that you don't know how to deal with it, and that you've decided to offload the frustration of the problem onto your user-base. Security labels suck, because you can't properly try some pieces of clothing on with those labels in them, which means sales go down."
Such complaining doesn't accomplish a thing, unless you tell them about an effective alternative. If you don't change anything about the trade-off they have knowingly made, nothing will change. To have any chance of convincing anyone, you at least need to explain the alternatives. Everyone that reads this post just shrugs their shoulders and ignores you, because their captchas effectively solve a problem they and their clients would suffer from without those captchas.
In this case, if you open with
Using a CAPTCHA is a way of announcing to the world that
you’ve got a spam problem, that you don’t know how to deal
with it, and that you’ve decided to offload the
frustration of the problem onto your user-base.
then I think it is very dissatisfying[1] to follow up later with
They replaced the CAPTCHA with honeypot fields and
timestamp analysis, which has apparently proven to be very
effective at preventing spam while being completely
invisible to the end user.
which indicates that you have no idea about alternatives for fighting spam, apart from some measures that have 'apparently' helped in one particular case. It's not better than someone in a bar complaining about stupid government rules, without any idea or suggestion for how to improve things.
[1] it said 'hypocritical' here. That is not the correct word for it.
That he offered up the word "apparently", even with strong evidence of proof shows that he's being an objective reporter and a good scientist. I'm disheartened that this would earn somebody ridicule here.
The plural of 'anecdote' is not data. Simply reporting an anecdote makes you neither a scientist nor a journalist, no matter how strongly the anecdote supports your feelings on some matter. In the end, this is about his feelings on captchas. He hasn't made the case that a better trade-off between fighting spam and a higher conversion is possible; he has only suggested something based on an anecdote. As others immediately questioned: what happened to spam levels? 'Apparently' is not good enough when dealing with that serious problem.
You're right that it's a gaping hole in the article, but it's not hypocritical. All web projects involve people from different disciplines working together. My background, for example, is in Psychology and User Research. People in my role can relay user needs, goals and expectations to you, but we can't tell you what development approach to use to solve it.
Your analogy does not stand true: security labels in real-world stores don't cause a percentage of customers to give up their purchases in frustration.
Having said that, in a forum like HN, most readers would expect both a statement of the problem and some proposed solutions. Frankly, when I posted this article, I didn't expect it to get onto the No. 1 spot on the front page. It must be a slow news day.
You're right, 'hypocritical' is not the correct word here, as you are not displaying behavior for which you criticise others.
As for the security labels: a few days ago I wanted to fit a belt with an awkward security label that prevented a proper fit. It was an additional bump that wasn't overcome and may have been the only thing preventing me from buying it.
Such complaining doesn't accomplish a thing, unless you tell them about an effective alternative. If you don't change anything about the trade-off they have knowingly made, nothing will change. To have any chance of convincing anyone, you at least need to explain the alternatives. Everyone that reads this post just shrugs their shoulders and ignores you, because their captchas effectively solve a problem they and their clients would suffer from without those captchas.
In this case, if you open with
then I think it is very dissatisfying[1] to follow up later with which indicates that you have no idea about alternatives for fighting spam, apart from some measures that have 'apparently' helped in one particular case. It's not better than someone in a bar complaining about stupid government rules, without any idea or suggestion for how to improve things.[1] it said 'hypocritical' here. That is not the correct word for it.