If you're still using the impossible-to-read-and-copy captcha images on your comments, I respectfully BEG you to consider the alternatives. Even moderating all of your comments, if you're that concerned with spam, is (somewhat) more tolerable (to me, anyway) than forcing these old eyes to focus THAT closely, still knowing that I can only guess at some of the illegible letters....
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| Oh I dunno....15 easyscratches? errrrrstitches? |
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| How about sucksur number? No? sisters 17? |
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| eur...eic...cri...e.....WTF????? |
I exaggerate only a tiny bit - I hope you get my point...
Some people are simply refusing to bother with comments on your captcha'd blogs...I quit after two failed attempts, and I'm beginning to wonder if even trying it once is worth it.
If you are on blogger, here is a previous post I did with detailed instructions on how to get rid of the dreaded Word Verification. You may even have it set, and not know it - you might want to double check and make sure.... (just because YOU can comment w/o a captcha on your own blog does not mean that others can....you're already cleared to comment on your blog, so you won't need to jump through the hoops like the rest of us)
I'll just toss another little mini-rant in here. I get that you like your privacy, and you dislike spam. I really do. But when I enter a captcha code and then I find out that you are moderating my comment on top of it, it makes me feel...wellllll..... I won't go through all the silly Freudian flashes that zip through my feeble brain....let's just say I don't feel like my comment is very much wanted or welcomed, so I often pass at that point.
I find that blogger catches nearly every spam post I get - I still have to delete it from both my email and from the blogger comment spam list, but it takes a couple of seconds to do that. Just not an issue. Also, maybe I've just been really, really lucky in that I've never had a published comment that upset me (lordy, I hope I'm not opening myself up with that comment lol!), but I've certainly experienced my share of upsetting experiences in 3D life. My tendency is to treat them like what they are - a FOG (F*ing Opportunity for Growth) and I move through it as gracefully as I can (which is often the clumsiest vision of non-grace ever, but hey....that's life.)
It's OK with me if you don't respect my attitude, but I know I'm not alone. I think that most of us blog both for our own, personal reasons, AND we're putting our words out for public readership. It just seems right to me to have some thoughtful consideration for our readers.
...Putting a smile back on my face, and going back to my regularly scheduling blogging..... :)
P.S. - per a request, you have my permission to re-post all or part of this post on your blog :)
44 comments:
I thought I might be one of few who eventually gives up on posting a comment after the umpteenth failed word/number verification. Often it's extremely difficult to figure out the letters. My favorite-- is the letter capitalized or not and the eternal question: Is there a space between the letters and number or not? I love reading sewing blogs and appreciate the need for minimizing spam and maintaining privacy/control. I just wish there was a less cumbersome way to do so, especially for those of us with "mature eyes.". Thanks for sharing. :-)
Cynthia
Hear!!! Hear!!! clap clap clap for Jilly clap clap clap
I refresh once, if I still can't read the characters, I don't leave a comment. As much as people say they enjoy our comments and want our comments, I can't understand why as bloggers they would tolerate such a comment killing activity. Thank you for posting so many of my thoughts.
Thank you....you are SO not alone :-)
::bows and blushes at the applause:::
Thank you - I totally agree!
I, too, am clanging my robotic hands together in adulation! Frankly, I've seen many more offensive comments issue from wetware--flesh and blood people--than I've ever seen from robots. I don't know why we bots have such a bad name.
I'm glad I checked, and am glad to find I had already turned off the dreaded "captcha" - YAY!
I completely agree, and appreciate you ranting for all to see. Most of my blog reading and commenting is done on my iPad, which makes the damn captcha thingy even more difficult. I like leaving comments, but give up when it's too much work to do so. Thank you for bringing this up again, Jilly.
Good to know! When I set up my blog, the captchas were easy to read and I thought the hard kind was a new option. I had no idea my blog would have those too, now. THANK YOU!
*runs off to fix this*
Yikes--I didn't know this either but it's fixed now--thanks.
There is a much bigger picture of my skirt if you click the link in the first sentence. It was my first time using the collage program and guess I went a little overboard with views and forgot size! thanks, peg
YAY!!!! My bitchiness has actually had some small positive result!!! :::wipes brow in relief::: :D
Yay Peg! Another successful result from my little rant - I feel SO much better about allowing myself to be Bitch For A Day ;D
I want to hang out with you for a day just so that I can get a month's worth of belly laughs!!! :-D
As someone who at one time unknowingly had word verification on her blog, thank you again for posting again about the vile things. I have a suggestion, everyone could repost your post on their blog, to spread the word far and wide. Is that okay with you Jilly? I will only repost if you give it your okay.
Deciphering gibberly gook isn't really my forte (and I am not an overly patient person at the best of times!!!) so I usually just pass-over on comments that need me to crack a secret code in 3 attempts.
Don't you just love that a machine (our computer) gives a test targeted at a human, to check that we aren't a machine!!! Reverse psychology or what!!!
Now I am sure my robot sniffing device is deactivated, but if anyone would like to leave me a message on my blog to just double-check, please do. Just make sure it is a player-friendly message...
Oh, you absotively have my permission, and thank you sweetie :) :) :)
lol at your machine psychology! I'm off to make a comment..... :)
Came through loud and clear - the human is on their lunch-break and has time to do approvals...thanks for checking this for me...J
Do 'bitchy rants' more often! You make them funny and non-offensive!! And I especially like the FOG part..I have to remember that one.
Thanks for repeating this info, Jilly! I hate those captchas too, and too many blogs still use them. It used to be they weren't that bad, but blogger made them much harder to read recently.
I agree, blogger is VERY good at detecting spam comments and tossing them into the "spam" bucket, awaiting my ultimate decision. The s/w works pretty well.
Exactly!
I've been thwarted by the comment captcha thing more than a few times. Sometimes after multiple tries, I just cannot figure it out. I don't like giving up, but I do.
I turned off the captcha on my blog and it has been fine. Perhaps this is do to low traffic and therefore nothing to brag about, but still it just shows that spam isn't a big problem for many people with small hobby blogs. It's worth a try, after all, if spam becomes a problem you can always turn it back on.
Oh, my have you "captured" my sentiments on the use of captchas on blogs and other sites. My glasses are trifocal with prisms in each lens to correct for vertical diplopia, and all of this helps me see quite well BUT figuring out those distorted words is a real challenge for me. I try 2-3 times, and then it's quits for me. Sometimes I look at the word/letters and decide it just isn't worth my effort. Thanks for letting me add my little rant.
Thanks for this, Jilly. I thought I was the only one who couldn't read those codes.
I read a repost of your rant on ElleC's blog and I totally agree. I'll repeat the comment I made there: I've had a similar post to this processing in my mind for a couple of weeks now. I believe that one reason the Captcha images have got harder and harder to read is because spammers are now employing people online to beat the Captcha images. I only discovered this when I was looking around to see if there was some sort of online work I could do to earn a few quid.
You go! I refuse to comment on any blog that uses Captcha - my aging eyes simply cannot see what they want me to input. - Heather
Best wishes to you in getting the sort of work that you can feel happy to be doing! :)
Well said Karin - it can always be turned back on :) I notice that none of the really high-traffic, popular blogs have captcha. Just sayin'...... ;-)
I'm pretty sure I don't have captcha on but I'll go check. My rant having to do with comments is the many many sewing blogs that require you to have an account with Blogger, Wordpress, etc. and sign into it before leaving a comment. I have multiple accounts for different things and I'd much prefer to just do the name/URL sign-in as you nicely have available. There are several blogs that I read regularly and would like to comment on, but can't because I refuse to sign into Google just to leave an innocuous blog comment.
Re moderation, I'm not sure why anyone with a sewing blog would turn that on. It's easy enough to catch spam and delete nasty posts afterwards if necessary. I bet that both of these options are turned on for new blogs by default and that a lot of people never even look at the settings.
Oh boy, that IS another issue - the need to sign up for each platform. I've done it, but then by the time I run into a blog that wants you to sign in with their platform, I've forgotten the password, can't find it, need to create a new one....can you see me rolling my eyes?
I decided to turn on moderation for posts over a month old, since most of the comments I get on the older posts are spam, but then I feel sort of bad when a real person leaves a comment that has to be moderated, so I may turn that off..... It just happened this morning, in fact!
I think my definition of FOG should be universally known ;-D
Well, we must have been on the same wave length as I was going to ask you to do this post once again. It seems like the blog gods don't want us to leave a comment as the letters are so distorted and the numbers can be very faint, and I am wearing my glasses!! Thanks so much Jilly.
Laura, it could be the way they have it set, because I've had people comment who don't have Blogger. I'm not sure of the exact titles but they are similar to Authors only, Blogspot members only, or Anyone.
Oh I know, and I agree most whole-heartedly, as you know! :D I took that hideous thing off ages ago AND I allow *everyone* to comment including Anonymous... and I recently checked out my spam box and was pretty amazed to see it had about 500 spammy comments in there! so if you ask me the spam detector obviously works purdy darn good!
I had a similar rant a while back on my blog....it's even worse when you're on a different platform (i.e. wordpressers trying to comment on blogger). We get that, and crap with the openID not wanting to do it's job that day. Uh, sorry, I'll get off the soapbox now.
Anyway, thanks for posting this rant, hopefully those last few blogs that I love will read this and comply with your instructions. :-)
Oh please! We 'red-headed step-children' from wordpress need all the help we can get cracking the code to post comments here!
I completely agree! Another thing that drives me nuts is when people have their blogs set to display only a few lines in the RSS reader - you have to click on the title to see the entire post. I believe that they do this to get more traffic for ad revenue and that just chaps my hide.
Thank you thank you! About time someone spoke up about those stupid illegible capcha codes!! Do people really leave THAT many "nasty" comments on SEWING blogs that people have to be so PARANOID? Bizarre! Anyway, good on you for speaking up!
I read a post about this a while ago and am pretty sure mine's turned off. Horrible things those capcha's. If I really want to comment I give it 2 refreshes, but that's it. Someone recently told me the computer will accept a close guess. Um yeah, maybe for other people, but so far not for me :-( It just believe's I'm a robot ! LOL
FOG? I do LOVE a good acronym! But yes, since removing captcha I have been pretty impressed at Bloggers ability to detect spam, and notice it more often than not captures the spammy ones (and an occasional real-live-human-type commenter). But it's hardly an effort to deal with.
I'm surprised Blogger hasn't noticed a decrease in commenting on those blogs with captcha (real vs spam) and acted accordingly. But hey - I was always in favour of renaming common sense 'uncommon sense', as something that's supposed to be common is so often difficult to find.
Furthermore, I seem to have lost my original ID, so feeling sometimes defeated. Plus a query -- are non-bloggers considered personae non gratae (?sp).
Regardless, love reading your blog. PS: You're never offensive!
Amen! I can't tell you how many replies I have written on sewing blogs and then just clicked away back into cyberspace because I couldnt' get the damn captcha. I think I need to proselitize on my blog too.
You have said it (repeatedly) wonderfully. I make a resolution each week or two to comment more frequently (believing in the karma principle that means I'll get the same in return) but then get soooo annoyed at the word verification. I'll spread the word in my own little way as well.
Oh, it's exactly what I think... Its so annoying and time consuming...
Yep I hate that thing. I also don't moderate comments on my blog, don't see any need to do that.
Well, you are clearly not the only one with this issue. Could they at least use real words, so if some of the letters/numbers are truly impossible to decipher, the context might make guessing a possibility?!
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