Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Word Verification.

For the record, I loathe word verification on blog commenting forms. I don't know if it's just because I'm a moron, but I rarely get them on the first try.

And it seems that most bloggers have this set to "on". Why? Do you just get a lot of spammers if you don't have it turned on? I don't have it turned on my blog and I've only had one spammer in a year and a half of blogging. (although I probably just jinxed it.) But then again, I guess I don't get a lot of comments, so I probably am not in the category of even getting spammers. I'm too small time for them to mess with!

I think my record was trying to put in those random letters about 5 or 6 times, before I finally said forget it and cancelled out of it. No comment is worth that, right? I just think I'm not too good at doing it. I read/type too fast so I make mistakes. Plus, their "j" and "i" look exactly alike.

Another thing - how many of you, when typing out the word verification letters, "sound it out"? Seriously - every time I am given a set of letters, I read it like it's a word. I get a kick when the word sounds extra funny or even makes sense in some way.

ahhh. I'm rambling. Well, I'm off to get waxed!

9 comments:

IBARMS said...

I'm so glad you brought this up. I get them wrong all the time, too, and I've lost comments -- good ones -- because I didn't wait to see if I got the stupid code right.

Anonymous said...

I kept getting weird comments on my blog so that is why I have it on mine. I may take it off though because if I want to comment someone back I have to type it in too and half the time I can't figure out what the darn letters are.LOL

Amy

~Joe said...

I hate it too and I just realised mine had it LOL,I think most people dont notice because it automatically uses the verification and if you dont manually change it thats where the settings stay. I just fixed mine and allowed comments from non blogger users...no wonder whenever I told people they could comment without signing up everyone said I was lying hmph

Katarina Jelly Beana said...

I love how totally focused on the random and mundane you get at around 10 dpiui...very much not talking about the elephant in the room, although I know full well it's all you can think about...

:)

Nico said...

So *that's* what my problem is.

hahahaha.

I turned it on a while ago when I was getting a fair amount of spam. It may have just been a phase, I'll have to try turning it off and see what happens!

MrsSpock said...

My husband, the software security grand poobah, wants me to do word verification to keep spammers off the blog. People have programs that troll the net and the program can't handle that little bit of security. It annoys me too, so I don't have it on my blog. I've had 3 spammers lave comments this year, which I deleted, and several spammers found my gmail address through my blog as well. Not enough for me to change my ways.

Jen said...

I don't have it turned on because I haven't ever gotten spam. But I agree that those letters can be very difficult to read sometime. I don't understand why they can't just use normal fonts.

Glennformer said...

I think it is fun to do the word verification. It's like a 5 second puzzle and, if you don't like the puzzle, you can just get a new one and, if you fail, you get a new one!

I don't know if they are all the same but at least one indicated that even thought the letters are mixed case, what you enter is NOT case sensitive. I know I used to be sure I was entering the letters correctly but I was also thinking that case mattered so entering them that way and having it fail. Given the number of first word verification failures I've experienced, I think there may also be an unannounced time limit or something else that causes it to fail. On the losing comments issue, I've gotten pretty used to having a scratch pad open for drafting anything I need to submit through any online form, then doing a cut & paste. That also gives me a running record of what I've said to people without having to keep track of exactly where I said it.

Kaci said...

I never even thought about if it was set on mine and it is! I hate it too...off to turn off word verification!