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Please Prove You're Not A Robot

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

It always surprises me how many bloggers leave their comment word verification setting to "on". Those words you have to type in to prove you're not a robot or a spammer (or a spamming robot) have always been annoying. But Blogger's latest attempt at this - the two word one - is just plain hideous.

Sometimes it take me two or three attempts. Sometimes, I confess, I give up. How many others do I wonder? How many comments never get through?

So, just a humble request. If you use Blogger and you've left this on, please, please consider turning it off. I turned mine off ages ago and haven't been flooded with spam. You can always turn it back on if it doesn't work out ...

Posted by Simon Kewin at 14:25

28 comments:

  2. Miranda - Glad it's not just me. Thanks for commenting!

    ReplyDelete

  3. Oh yes. I totally can't type those correctly the first time. Then there are the times that I think I typed the word wrong, but it accepted the word anyway. It's so confusing.

    ReplyDelete

  4. Shelley - Happens to me all the time!

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  5. I turned mine off last week, and I've received 3 spam so far -- all about yeast.

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  6. Milo - Hmm, not so good! Although, in my experience, the Blogger spam filter works pretty well. Did it catch them?

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  7. It's even worse for me 'cause I'm dyslexic!

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  8. 1000th - They just don't consider things like that do they?

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  9. I average about 200 comments a week on my blog. I do not have WV, and I do not have moderation turned on. I only have to delete about 1 spam comment per month.

    WV is completely unnecessary. I give up after two failed attempts.

    ReplyDelete

  10. I make it into a game!

    Old Kitty - passed over 200 of these in the past 2 weeks proving she is not a robot.

    New Word Verification - 5 proving it is feeble when pitted against my paws!

    I win, I win! Take care
    x

    ReplyDelete

  11. I'm with you on this. But I think the problem is, a lot of bloggers don't realize their setting is on because when they comment on their own blog, word verification doesn't show up for them (since they're the blog owner). I've been tempted a few times to leave a comment (assuming I can read the captcha) telling them that I am NOT a robot, and will they please get rid of their captchas? But I haven't done 'cause I don't want to rile them in case they were aware and wanted to leave it on.

    But seriously, it makes me NOT want to leave a comment when I see those annoying captchas. I really don't want to waste time deciphering random, indecipherable words when I could be doing something else.

    ReplyDelete

  12. Hmmm.

    OK.

    But are you sure you're not a robot?

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  13. Matthew - Excellent. I have comment moderation on myself, but the amount of spam I see is very low, too.

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  14. Old Kitty - Impressive! OK, you're definitely not a robot.

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  15. Cherie - You make an excellent point. And I do agree with you. Except that sometimes I'm afraid I do ask bloggers to switch their CAPTCHA off when I comment! Is that wrong?

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  16. Lydia,

    I'm sure I'm not a robot. Except, maybe I've just been programmed to think that?

    ReplyDelete

  17. These things bug me, too. I did get the impression that I was no longer being asked to type in verification if I was a frequent commentor, but I suspect I've got that wrong.

    I'll look into switching mine off, if I can.

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  18. Thomas - I've never noticed it do that, I must admit. I think people just switch the darned thing off! It's real easy to do, I promise ...

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  19. I've turned captcha off since it changed to the unmanageable version, but I'm now getting regular spam. Mostly on older posts, though, so I'm hoping that moderating comments on posts over seven days old will at least mean that commenters won't see the spam.

    It's a bit of a nuisance, though. I've tried changing who can post so it's registered users only. I hope I'll get emails if people are having trouble commenting!

    ReplyDelete

  20. fairyhedgehog - Fair enough. If it works for you, leave it on. I guess you're more popular than me! There is no ideal solution. I just use message approval and ignore any spam ones I get.

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  21. It's insane! I don't understand why they went to two funky words that no one can decipher.

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  22. I have never used it and never will.
    Hopefully everyone turns it off before the A to Z Challenge.

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  23. Karen/Alex - Glad to hear it. And great point about the A to Z. Perhaps you should have a post about it?

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  24. Well, I turned mine off yesterday after you alerted me to the problem. Although, this morning I woke up to about 8 spam comments that needed deleting. I'll see how it goes.

    Though I'll admit, I hate those word verification things too. I never get them right first time.

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  25. Cate - I feel responsible now! But Blogger do a great job of catching any spam I get. Perhaps yours will settle down?

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  26. Thanks for the heads up Simon, I did have mine on for the aforementioned "spam related" reasons, but if it's keeping folks from commenting--off it goes. I hate them too, I really do, I just got tired of the comments:

    Thank you for glorious valuable information proving much helpful.

    When I'm writing a web-serial about the last two Giant Slugs breeding in the back of a spaceship....
    I mean, It kind of freaked me out.
    ;)

    Consider the captchas off, but I won't be responsible for weirdness in the comment stream. :D

    ReplyDelete

  27. Frances - I so want to read that web serial!

    ReplyDelete

  28. I agree -- I guess some bloggers receive more comments than he or she cares to receive. Sadly, some of my faborite blogs have left this feature on. Dumb and haughty in my opinion!

    ReplyDelete

I'd love to know what you think.