If you've visited your fair share of Blogger blogs, you've probably come across this feature. It's the terribly annoying thing that makes you type out two (usually fake) words before you can post your comment. It sounds simple enough, but they've managed to make this into the most aggravating exercise possible! Usually the word is a completely illegible squiggle. Plus, now they make you type in two words. At least now one of the two words is an image so it's usually more or less legible, but still. What a pain.
Generally, the sight of word verification won't stop me from leaving a comment, though I have read some blog posts about this where the authors have said that they won't even try to leave a comment if they see it. What does drive me up the wall, though, is when my first go at deciphering the hieroglyphics doesn't work and I have to try yet again. (How could I have possibly read the gibberish-scribble wrong the first time? Impossible!)
I can tell you, I'm pretty close to joining the camp of people who won't comment if they see that word verification is a requirement. I know the theory is that it stops spam, but Google has a spam filter already and word verification won't stop a determined (human) spammer. You can still manage your comments by reviewing them and deleting the spam. I personally think that any spam that might get filtered out is not worth infuriating readers who would have commented but who are frustrated and don't bother because they first have to "prove they're not a robot."
The nice thing is that Google used to make it pretty difficult to turn this thing off because you used to have to go into the old Blogger interface in order to turn it off, but now they have put it into the new interface so it is easy to change the setting.
All you need is to go to your dashboard, click on "Settings," then "Posts and Comments," and under "Show word verification," choose "No." If you click on the picture below, you can see where you need to go a bit more clearly.
Now your readers can easily leave comments without having to jump through annoying word verification hoops first. I, for one, will appreciate the change!
You hit the problem dead on. IF I have time to leave a comment, it isn't much time so if I can't get that verification the first time, unless I am REALLY dead'set on leaving that comment AND I have the time then the comment goes POOF! My time is more valuable then wasting it playing Blogger's little game. You are right - there are more ways to filter out spam and if the spammer is dead-set on leaving their stupid incoherent message then they will do it. Thank you aNd yes, there are those bloggers who refuse to leave comments on blogs with that verification - I'm close to being one of them.
ReplyDeleteKim
You're not alone! It could be a decent feature if the text wasn't so ridiculous. If the whole premise is that Blogger just wants someone to type in a word, I don't understand why it has to be so hard to decipher. I think it's a good thing for newer bloggers to know about - so they can turn it off and get more comments!
DeleteI knew that I had issues with reading the letters, but thought it was just me! lol! But after reading this I completely agree! I just turned off that feature on our blog! :)
ReplyDelete~Amy
It's definitely not just you! I wanted to spread the word because so many people can't stand the feature. I hope it makes a difference for your blog!
DeleteHear Hear ! Totally agree with everything you said. To make matters even worse - it becomes even WORSE if you are on an iPad. The iPad tries to do an auto correct of the jibberish that you have to try and type - making you type it 2 or 3 times MORE! I wish everyone would turn it off. If you are worried about inappropriate comments you can use the prior moderation feature - this allows you to check the comments prior to them being published.
ReplyDeletePoots xxx
Oh, no question. Google word verification plus iPad autocorrect is the perfect recipe for absolutely insanity. It was so bad that I don't even browse on my iPad anymore - I couldn't stand trying to comment because it was just such a headach!
DeleteGood point about the moderation feature too. I don't have that turned on either, and so far I haven't gotten much spam at all - but this blog isn't all that big either! :) Maybe one day I'll need it, but for now I don't have any problems.
AMEN!! Thanks for this...I'm glad I am not the only one who gets frustrated by this!
ReplyDeleteYou're not alone, that's for sure. I feel like the people who can't stand this could start a club...a very, very large online club.
DeleteTotally agree! The problem is that most people do not realize it because they do not leave comments on their own blog. I recently told a friend her blog had it on. She had no idea. I think most just don't know they have it on.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. I didn't know much about it myself (or look into how to turn it off) until I got to commenting on other people's blogs and noticed it. The only thing is I don't know other bloggers well enough to tell them they have it on - the implication would be that it's annoying to me, but if they like it I wouldn't want to offend them! Maybe if more people read about it, they can decide to turn it off if they want. I figured I'd try to do my part to spread the word!
DeleteI had it on mine when I first started thinking that this was somehow a huge problem and then I turned on something that just put them in spam if they had weird dates or something. I go through all my comments daily so I know that I could erase what is junk but I have only ever gotten one weird one in all that time. Now I am fearful and want to go double check that it is still off :) I am the worst at guessing the mystery words and usually have to do three or four tries. At that point, I think that my comment is not needed anymore or might have changed to something more frustrated :)
ReplyDeleteI was paranoid about spam at first too, but then I realized, unlike the big blogs, I don't get enough spam to make it worthwhile to potentially turn commenters away. I'll stop by your blog and leave to a comment to see if it's off on yours or not!
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