JkCaptcha has to be a strong contender for most hideous regression in web development for 2005. What use is keeping automated systems from creating accounts on your web-based service (whatever it is) if it’s going to make your site look this bad? I have no idea why it took me so long to come across this very clever atrocity.
Picture above is just a random one from Rapidshare because I refuse to sully my site with the evils JkCaptcha produces.
I turned off anti-spam on mine. It only caught a few messages among them not spam. At this level I can just delete them myself. I agree that captchas are evil if they go beyond simple readable short text
I get anywhere from 12 to 100 spam comments per day. I really prefer not to have to wade through it all manually. I don’t intend to require identity verification or speedbump-style Turing tests, though. I get few enough real comments as it is without raising up additional barriers.