Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Okay.

You know what? The spam is getting out of control. If I actually was a person who slept more, I'd never be able to keep up with the onslaught.

Here's the thing. I really loathe those little verification boxes, where you have to type in the jumble of distorted letters, to prove you're a real poster. I hate those. I find them insanely difficult, all out of proportion to how difficult I imagine I should find them, for one thing...

So for those of you who have added the verification to your comments, do you find it helps? Is it really worth it?

Because those little boxes are a serious check on my impulse to comment on other people's blogs, I gotta admit. I'll type a long comment, then I encounter the dreaded verification box, and it's about 50-50 whether I take a stab at deciphering the letters I'm supposed to type, or just say, "Aw, hell. Forget it" and delete the comment and go read something else.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've never had a spam comment with the word verification function turned on. Mac, I'm surprised you find typing the letters so burdensome. It only takes about 4 extra seconds, and the distorted letters on blogger are pretty clear.

Mac said...

Huh. See, I knew it shouldn't be as difficult as I find it.

My brain just does not want to process those shapes as letters. It takes me as much as a minute to puzzle through the word verification--and I often get at least one letter wrong.

You know what this means, don't you? What if I'm really a Google bot, and have somehow become self-aware?!

Carrie Shanafelt said...

I also hate the comment verification thingie. That's why I use Haloscan for comments. No spam, ever! (No, there's nothing wrong with you for not being able to make out the letters...)

Anonymous said...

What if I'm really a Google bot, and have somehow become self-aware?!

That cracked me up!

Hey all you Stones in the Field readers, we better find where the server is and take it out before she/it can launch the missiles! I'll keep her/it busy....

Um, Mac? How about a nice game of Tic-Tac-Toe?

Unknown said...

Mac, you're not the only one it's hard for. My excuse is my eyesight. *s*

In the past few days, I've received about 4 spam comments. I found them all pretty quickly and deleted them. Except for one, I think.

I can understand the necessity for the word verification things, but unless the person I'm replying to is a good friend, I'll probably just pass on by and not comment on anything.

ohdawno said...

I have the verification turned on because on my original blog the comment spam and trackback pings to more spam are totally out of control. I haven't had one bit of spam with the verification on.

I'd be willing to turn it off and deal with the spam if it keeps you from commenting tho'.

Ms M said...

If you are a google bot, I'm really glad they come with a sense of humour...:-)

Mac said...

Aw, Dawno--you're stuck with me, I'm afraid. I've decided to just suck it up and deal with the word verification thingies on the blogs I visit. It is, I'll admit, a much bigger deterent on those blogs that I have no real investment in--where I lurk but seldom comment.

In the meantime, I'll investigate haloscan, but I don't want to lose all y'alls previous comments.

I expect I shall just continue to muddle along, weilding a ruthless hand on the delete button for the comment-spam that appears overnight. :) It's manageable, so far.

Anonymous said...

Hi. I don't like using the Word Verification feature either, especially when it won't accept the letters I type the first time. For a few weeks that kept happening with every comment I tried to post.

But I'm living with using it now--getting six spam messages in less than five minutes is something I don't want repeated. As I was sitting there deleting the first one in the thread, the second showed up, as I deleted the second, the third showed up, and so on. Thought I was gonna lose my mind, like I was stuck in a Infinite-Comment-Spam-Loop Twilight Zone episode or something.

Ray Wong said...

I have it turned on. I think most people who really want to comment on my blog (not too many of them, sad to say) would be okay with an extra step. Maybe it's just me -- I don't find them bothersome. It's really no big deal to me. But I understand how it might deter someone else.