Okay. I just have to let off a little steam.
This morning I spent a while searching out new blogs, following long and winding trails of other people's blogrolls. Click here. Click there.
Read lots of good stuff!
One woman was posting about how she felt when her comments plummeted. Well, I've certainly been there and knew how she felt so I wrote a long, considered, kind comment, telling her basically to check all the practical stuff first. Page load. Ask a question in her post that would encourage people to share their thoughts. Et cetera. Blah blah. All told, I thought it was fairly nice and an opportunity to share a lot of the same things people shared with me when I would begin to melt down about the same thing.
The comment was lost.
Why?
Because I couldn't get past the g** d*** captcha program! The pale grey on an even paler grey, obscured letters with lines through them, too many letters, upper case and lower case, on and on.
I had to give up and she never got the benefit of all your wisdom, that which was passed along to me.
I'm pissed off!
Look, let me put it on the table:
Unless you are KOS.com, FreeRepublic.com, Ariana Huffington, Barbara Ehrenreich or one of the really big bloggers, you're probably not going to get anything beyond the occasion hyperlinked spam comment that directs you to a teeth whitening website.
That's just the reality of it.
So why have something like that? Why make it more difficult to communicate?
Please, please, please! Have mercy on those of us who are dyslexic, those of us with poor eyesight and those of us who have no agenda beyond simply wanting to communicate with you.
Get rid of it. Please!
(huff puff. My rant is over and no one's house blew down)
:)
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Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Trouble brewin'
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33 comments:
I hear ya, Chani. I don't use it, but I have heard of bloggers who did get spammed and ended up turning it on because of that.
Viking Conquest recently wrote a very funny post about this same issue.
I went and read the Viking Conquest post. Yes, that was definitely funny! LOL
The risk ratio for getting seriously spammed is so low that it just doesn't seem worth it to me to alienate potential commenters or readers.
I've gotten spammed twice in 14 months. I deleted them. We all lived.
Mine's now off. I did it for Mad (y'know, Just Posts Mad), but now I see that I also did it for you. ;)
AMEN!!!!
Also...fwiw...I did get spammed to an annoying level immediately after joining NaBloPoMo.
I switched on comments moderation.
It stopped.
It did mean comments weren't INSTANTLY available to read, and I had a little more labor to approve comments.
BUT.
I did not put anyone through eyeball and brain torture.
Julie
Using My Words
Nothing better than a good rant to cleanse the soul, I believe.
I am so with you on this post, Chani.
But well, whatever makes people OK, right?
I always wonder if those things are some sort of intelligence test. If so, I fail repeatedly...
i used to have it, and then I took it off. i find that bloggers isn't so bad, but typepads are awful. When I found myself sighing over having to do someone else's word verification is when I disabled mine. so far, no problems!
psssst...not to be a hag, but it actually keeps worms from phishing some commenter's ip's addresses and emails with spam as well. Just sayin'.
That drives me insane too. And I *think* mine is off right now. But every now and then there is some kind of spam glut wherein I am spammed mercilessly until I turn on my thingy in self defense. Spammers. Last time it was some religious wingnut that was posting these mega long comments that were just completely insane.
Spammers and nutjobs. They make the world a special place, don't they?
I'm embarassed to admit that I always have to enter the code to prove I'm not a bot more than once. Sometimes three or four times.
Oh the shame!
I think mine is off--at least it was at one point. I'll double-check.
Oh i SO agree with you on this. I hate HATE word verification. I am a DREADFUL typist, and i suck at it and i will no longer comment on any blog that is new to me if they have WV.
So there!
Ah ... if I had a nickel for all the times I've had this SAME experience, I could buy myself something nice (and I've only been in the Blogosphere for 3 weeks)! I figured it was just my dyslexic self acting up ... and (after it happened one time too many), I resolved to hit "select all" and "copy" before trying to figure out & entering the code (which I agree is MUCH worse on Typepad than Blogger) but alas, who remembers to do such a thing every time? Certainly not me! Early on I'd try to recreate the comment, but now when it happens, I just move on as you did today Chani.
So ... before leaving this comment, I took a look through the "settings" at my sites and discovered (to my dismay) the "default setting" must have been to have this security feature functional. I think I've changed it ... but if it still comes up when leaving me comments, let me know and I'll try again to fix it. There's still so much I don't know, but none of needs the extra headache, especially if it's unnecessary!
Hugs,
Spammers and nutjobs. They make the world a special place, don't they?
Ha!
I wonder what a cyber-chastity belt for Axis II-Personality-Disordered-Resident-Evil would look like. Maybe something in Alcatraz yellow with blue stripes?
Oh. Whassat? Co-optation? Must I?
Damn.
You're right.
Maybe next time.
Chani, I feel your pain and must remain. As I am. For this now. While being subject to change. (hee hee)
Apologies for any bother this might cause. Not intended, not in the least.
I recently woke up, got a wild hair and erased a year's worth of blogginess with a swift click. Just 'cause. Didn't save a thing, didn't see the point, didn't look back.
If the day ever comes when comment numbers and stats determine anything in this life, I'm a goner in my Tao.
Thank you for allowing me this ramble. And the space to be different. Long live comment moderation! (hee hee heeeee)
:)
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As a safety measure you can always hit CTRL+A (to select all) and CTRL+C (to copy all), so you have your comment ready to repost (by hitting CTRL+V) by pasting the comment back in should this happen again.
I recently added the verification letters to my comments because I got about two dozen bot comments to each of several posts.
I hate them, too, and I'm going to remove them again now. I don't want to lose you or your hard-earned wisdom.
SM, I don't even recall why I turned mine off. Someone probably told me it was a PITA. :)
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Julie, I think that's the way I'd go, too. If I got spammed heavily (not one or two that I can just delete), I'd do the same thing. Moderating the comments is a pain in the butt, too, but a better solution than WV.
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Ian, preach it, Brother! :)
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Mitzh, most people probably agree with me on this. I've seen so many complaints elsewhere, too.
I make no objection if someone else wants to have it.. but I reserve the right to not comment, too.
I'd much rather comment, if I can.
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Emily, my thoughts about it are just plain evil. Too many evenings with Coast to Coast AM. :)
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PM, I am willing to give it a shot if it's only four or five letters and they are not obscured.
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Flutter, just like everything, it has its good points, I suppose. Just the same, I find it to be a major annoyance. In some ways, spam is just a reality of life on the Internet.
I see your point.. but there's got to be a better way.
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BA, I got that religious wingnut, too, now that you mention it. I deleted his/her comments and I guess he/she got bored and finally went away.
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Janet, I have the same issue. I will usually only try twice though. A comment has to mean a lot to me before I'll try more than that.
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Aliki, I don't think you have it as I recall.
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Meno, I'm with you. I really do detest it. It's a petty annoyance and I don't need any more petty annoyances in my life.
I'm basically the same as you. I won't comment on new blogs that have it. Some of them though... you write the whole comment, publish it.. and then the word verification comes up. It says some inane thing like "just one more step! So we know you are not a bot, please enter the word below." Then I have to decipher the hieroglyphics, key shift for upper and lower case.. and, well, I say "fark it" and move on.
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Storyteller, I'll let you know if you have it. I don't recall the template you use but if you use blogger, I can tell you how to shut it off. I'll email you.
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The thing that always makes me laugh is - the people using word verification also have comment moderation enabled. Basically they are asking their commentors to do work for nothing - because they moderate each individual comment!
I have to say people on blogger have no idea what spam is - since moving to Wordpress my TanTan Noodles spam filter has caught over 3,000 spams, and Akismet has caught about 450. On blogger I rarely got a single spam.
Cheers,
Snoskred
PT, I think there is a special place in hell for spammers. They're the slimiest of the slime... but they're not going to stop me from having the freedom on this site, either.
I can understand your position. I still read your site.. and if I have something burning me up that I absolutely must say, I'll email you. :)
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Anvil, I could... but I usually forget. The comment I wrote that woman this morning took me half an hour. I was beyond irritated.
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Susan, you wouldn't lose me. I have your email address (Dishonest John laughter) :)
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Snos, yes.. the double whammy seems a bit much. I don't like the idea of moderated comments.. but I'd rather do that than have WV. Being retired, comments would be let loose in a matter of minutes usually anyway.
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that word verification things drives me bonkers. but i guess if i got hit with major spam i'd turn it on for just a while. i so hope that doesn't happen!
you've given me something to think about. i was getting spammed a long time ago, i believe at my blogger address, so i kept it on. but i have poor eyesight too, so i dislike doing wvs for other people.
i do so love your cute little comments i've been getting, so i might have to trade them for you. ;)
Chani--I am back after a long absence at your site--nothing about what you post, but for some reason every time I tried to load your blog page, my computer would lock up. Don't know why--but I now see a new design, so I am guessing that had something to do with it.
Anyway, I agree on the ridiculous word verification combos that come up. I will sometimes hit ENTER, without doing the word, in which case Blogger gives me a new (and sometimes shorter) word verification.
For a while I used blog admin approval, but took that off too. And I have not had trouble with spammers.
Blog on!
Chani - I don't think I have this in wordpress, they seem to have a better system for dealing with spam/phishing. Don't even get me started on Blogger....
Oddly, I just wrote out a long thoughtful comment only to have it not go through due to a Blogger error. Those Blogger jerks...
So true. And I love the graphic.
I had this comment spam not only on present posts, but on every single archive post...it was thousands of lines long and Blogger suspended my account. So. That's why I do it.
I hear you. I have had spam once or twice and then I moderated comments for a while. I, too, have this feeling that word verification drives away more serious commenters than spam. (Though I don't know about what flutter said.)
This said I might add that I have started making a habit of copying every comment I make on blogger before hitting publish so that when something goes wrong (notice that I didn't say if) I can try again without having to retype everything.
Mine is on (sorry) because THE DAY I WAS IN LABOR FOR 37 HOURS my blog was spammed almost 1000 times.
That was far more frustrating than any comment I've ever lost because I couldn't spell better than a bot.
But I'm sorry for what happened.
You made me laugh but those letters are a real pain in the notwots - that's the reason I never had it on - I truly hate them
Chani: You are totally right about those programs which I also hate, but I was getting weird computer spam about how much my blog was loved but it became clear had never been read by a human. I don't trust my ability to screen those out and I fear they will corrupt my whole blog. Lots of comments do get lost this way. It's a dilemma. I'm going to mull over this.
sing it sistah!
what I mean to say as well as I cannot figure out how to take off teh sign on at my place for commentors. makes me nuts.
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