Hello All, here is one of the rare occasions when I feel it is absolutely a necessity to post an off-topic note to these lists, as I believe this is truly of the utmost import to the blind / VI community.
the below article / plea is by Bernard Maldonado, of The Solona Captcha Service. http://www.solona.net My sincere apologies to those of you who'd rather not receive this. Please do feel free to delete this rather lengthy note if you so choose… to all other readers, I do hope you'll give this note your serious attention as this is truly a beneficial service to us, in the extreme… thanks so much for your time and do have a lovely day / evening, wherever you may be!… Sincerely, Cara Quinn --- I'm not going to beat around the bush in this article. The bottom line is that I have failed to attract Volunteer Operators for Solona. I am basically still a one man show! I am thankful for 'Xavier' from London who does serve when he can, but his schedule is full with work-related activities. My original marketing strategy did not work, so I have a new plan and hopefully it will work better in future months. In fact, the best response was from an article published by Dean Martineau from Top Dot Enterprises in his Top 10 Tech Tidbits for Thursday Newsletter. I am very grateful for his willingness to include a piece about Solona. Even though I didn't get any volunteers from that group, it was a really effective campaign, and I would like to recognize Dean's Newsletter as a great resource. I realize now that many people need to be reached in order to yield a small number of volunteer operators. The process of getting volunteer operators is simply taking more time. I still believe that the process will work. The main problem is that I cannot continue to provide night time Captcha Solutions by myself. Why? It's not healthy, and it has a profound impact on my daily productivity. Inconsistent sleep patterns are difficult for me to tolerate on a regular basis. Moreover, it is not fair to the users who submit captchas that never get solved. Luckily, I don't miss many, but I certainly do miss some. I took pride in providing service at all hours of the day and night, but now I realize that I'm harming the integrity of Solona since the quality of my service during these night time hours is lower than during the daytime. I am going to start turning the status to "Off" during my sleep hours, which are basically from 11 PM CST to 6:30 AM CST. The Status will be "On" during all other hours as much as possible. This is the only way I can sustain a high quality service for Solona Users until there are more operators in the proper time zones to provide around the clock attention. I consider this a move in the right direction. It means that Solona will continue to provide high quality service during hours that are manageable. Once Operators are online during those deep night hours, the high quality service will be even more prevalent around the clock. Once there are operators available during my sleeping hours, then the status will be updated. The good news is that you have an opportunity to help. How? By being an Ambassador for Solona. If every Solona.net user would just ask one sighted person to be a Volunteer Operator, the results would likely be tremendous. There are over 1,000 registered users. Try to imagine the impact. If you care about the free service that Solona provides; if you want to see Solona be a sustained service, then take action! Ask someone at your place of worship, ask a family member, ask a teacher, talk about it in your podcast, write about it in your blog, talk to school friends. Solona works well for people who sit at a desk for several hours and can take 20 seconds or so from time to time to browse to a different window. On the other hand, almost anyone can be an Operator from home: sitting on sofa with a netbook, or while sitting in a home office. The good thing is that Solona is not invasive at all. The Operator dictates when he/she is available to serve. One thing you can do is show people how it works. You know how simple it is. Just ask someone to take a moment and watch how you do it. Maybe they will like what they see and want to get involved. I am doing my part to provide a high quality service that meets the needs of people who need help solving captchas independently. Please do your part to find sighted operators who can join me in this quest. I would like to take a moment and talk about the website design. Currently, the Solona.net website is not very friendly for sighted people. What I mean is that it is designed for people who use screen readers. The next site update is scheduled for late August. early September. The site will include a clear process for interested parties to register as an operator and obtain one on one training to be an operator. The color scheme will be more friendly for sighted people, as well. The reason I mention this is that you can't simply say to someone: "just go to the website" (at least until September). Rather, you need to talk about it and even show it to people so that they see how it works and how meaningful it is to so many people. Here is a link to a Volunteer document that describes how Solona Operators work, and answers many questions about working with Solona. Download it, read it, publish it, refer to it, ask me questions if you need clarification. Give it to people you think might like to be operators. Keep in touch with me via Twitter (@solona) or email ([email protected] ) and let me know if you have a prospect that wants me to contact them. In the meantime, I will implement the Marketing Plan for Volunteers. Between both efforts, there should be some new volunteer operators. In order for Solona to work well at all hours of the day and night, there needs to be people in Australia and New Zealand solving Captchas. This timezone is perfectly located to provide opposite work from all North American time zones. Thanks to everyone who supports Solona. Bernard Maldonado Solona Captcha Solution Service [email protected] skype: bernardmaldonado --- Solona Volunteer Overview Do you have 15 seconds to spare? That’s all it takes for you to make a positive difference for visually impaired people from all over the world who surf the Internet. Solona is a Captcha Solution Service. Volunteers provide real-time web-based assistance to people when they encounter an inaccessible Captcha on a website. Since Solona is not an automated service, it is important to have volunteers available as much as possible during a 24 hour period. This is made possible by establishing volunteers in different time zones around the world. You might be asking “What is a Captcha?” A Captcha is a security device used on websites to minimize automated posts, blog replies, and automated registrations by spammers. You know it’s a Captcha when it says “Enter the words you see in the box above” or “Are you really human, prove it?” A Captcha is usually a word (or group of letters) represented in a graphic that must be typed into a text box before a user can proceed with the task. Most Captchas are inaccessible to visually impaired people since they are only in a graphic format. You might be asking “Well, what about those audio buttons?” Those are very poor quality and it is very difficult to understand what they are saying. Try one and you’ll understand. If you are looking for a way to help others without having to leave your house, raise money, or make phone calls, then Solona may be for you. Is It Easy to Volunteer With Solona? Absolutely! Solona makes it very easy. In fact, you make the rules: -Wherever you want (home, office, sofa, mall, library, ) -Whenever you want (morning, day, night, deep night) Can’t sleep? Solve Captchas! -As long as you want (1 minute, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 10 hours, …..?) There is no schedule to manage, or coordinate. It’s a matter of you working when you want, and when it’s convenient for you. It’s only a matter of logging in and logging out. -No software to install; training is very fast and easy. What Equipment do I Need? -Any computer with an Internet connection and browser -Push email enabled on mobile device (for notifications) is preferred, ie: blackberry. Why do I need a Push email Phone? Because it’s the fastest and most reliable notification method available currently. Otherwise, browser notification works fine. Common Questions: -Do I have to talk to anyone? Do I have to see anyone? No, not at all! It’s all over the Internet and it is anonymous. The users do not know the operator and the operator does not know who the users are. -Do I need any special software or programs? No. Just the browser. -Do the people know my identity when I am solving Captchas? No, you won’t know who is sending you a Captcha, and the other person will not know who is solving it. The entire process is anonymous. Is it Difficult to Solve a Captcha? Not at all! It’s just a matter of looking at the image and typing what you see: letters, numbers, words, and sometimes characters. The whole process takes about 15 seconds. If for some reason you cannot solve the Captcha at that moment, simply let it go. Another operator will solve it. Maybe you can get the next one. Once you solve a Captcha, you can go back to what you were doing. OK, I Want to be an Operator. How do I get Started? It’s easy to get started. First, fill out the Online Volunteer Form. Once your information is received, you will be contacted to schedule a brief training session and then you can get started. Still want learn more? Keep Reading for more information. Here’s How it Works: After you become an Operator ..... You sign into your Solona.net Operator Account and activate notifications. Once you do that, you will start receiving mobile email notifications that a Captcha is ready for you to solve. You decide if you are available or not when you receive a notification. When you want to stop receiving emails, you log back into your Solona.net Operator Account and disable notifications. Once that is done, you will no longer receive anymore notifications until the next time you are ready to volunteer again. While your notification status is active, you will receive an email notification to your mobile device every time a user submits a Captcha for solving. If you are available to solve it, all you have to do is open the Solona.net browser page and solve the Captcha – a total process time of about 15 seconds. If you are unavailable, simply let it go by and maybe you will get the next one. The beauty of Solona Operators is that someone will always solve the Captcha even if you cannot at that moment. Solving Captchas can be integrated to any computer activity and it won’t get in your way at all. You don’t have to look at the Solona website until you receive an email notification and decide that you want to solve a Captcha. The email is informational only. You do not reply to anyone. You are in complete control of when you are volunteering and what you do while you are volunteering. What does the image look like with the Captcha? Normally, the image is a partial screen capture that includes the Captcha which needs to be solved. Once you have identified the Captcha on the image, you type the value, normally one word or two words, in the text box below the image and click ‘Send’. That’s literally it. The whole process takes around 15 seconds and does not have to interfere at all with your task or your computer use. Why Does Solona Exist? So many websites use Captchas to limit the amount of Spam or rogue account registrations that take place on their website. These Captcha devices make it literally impossible for a visually impaired person to register or post on a website. Solona provides an interface for blind and visually impaired users to independently solve Captchas and proceed with their intended task. You might be saying “yeah, but I’ve seen audio symbols and handicapped icons next to those Captcha things. So why can’t they use those?” That is an understandable question. The problem with those audio Captchas is that the audio quality is so difficult to understand that they are, in most cases, are not a reliable alternative for a blind person. In case you’re wondering, give it a shot for yourself and see if you can understand the audio speech. You might be wondering “Wow, but isn’t there a way to automate this so that operators are not necessary?” Well, it’s not that easy. There are so many different kinds of Captchas, and so many sites that use Captchas differently. There is not any reliable way to ensure a high degree of accuracy in an automated format. So as you can see, Solona fills a need for blind and visually impaired people when it comes to solving Captchas. If you like what you see, then take a moment and consider whether or not you want to be a volunteer. It’s easier than you think! If you have any questions, or want to discuss this opportunity, please contact: Bernard Maldonado Solona Captcha Solution Service HYPERLINK "mailto:[email protected]"; [email protected] skype: bernardmaldonado --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
