Saturday, August 21, 2010

Test...

Lately, I've been receiving more and more requests for me to remove the word verification feature on my comments. Apparently several frustrated readers tried to leave comments different times on the Thursday Giveaway posts without success.

So... here goes!

I had done a test earlier with disastrous results. I ended up getting spammed like crazy and spent many tedious hours removing the insidious comments carrying potentially dangerous links. My fingers are crossed that this test will be different.

17 comments:

Pretty Things said...

I read her post, too, and so far have only had one spam -- I'm crossing my fingers, too!

Marcia DeCoster said...

so...me too, although I've never used captcha I have used logging in to a google or other identifiable account, which I am also thinking about removing. I marked my Chinese character commenter as spam in the comment section of blogger and now it is not getting through, progress.

Andrew, I need your email, wanted to respond to studio cleaning tips....my process....maybe helpful?

John Dearden said...

Well, I have never had an issue of someone trying to leave me a message or even for me to post to other blogs.

I think your blog is great anyway. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

I read Kate's post too...
It would be nice to skip the BS

Andrew Thornton said...

Hey Marcia,

You can email me at: ardenttie@yahoo.com

ACreativeDreamer said...

Interesting, I hope you let us all know what you find.

Unknown said...

I hate word verification! But understands its usage. I wlways enjoy when I can 1-2-3 leave a comment quick. Tell us how it goes in future...

kate mckinnon said...

Hey! Fantastic!

Since you are still requiring registration, how could you get spam?

Tell me how it goes.

Davinia said...

Hi Andrew, I got a whole new comment widget instead of using the blogger one. the reason being so many people don't have google accounts and were having trouble leaving a comment so I uploaded this http://aboutecho.com/echo-demo.html and I never get any spam. Plus there cool little bits and bobs that you can add to your comment, images etc, also I don't use word verification.

Laura Sparling said...

Thanks for your post.

I've just switched my word verification off too but I'm keeping comment moderation on. Hopefully Blogger's new spam box feature will help weed out the spam from the good!

Laura :o)

Lois Moon said...

My word verify is off & I've had no problems.

Marsha of Marsha Neal Studio said...

I go back and forth about it myself. There are certain blogs that I visit that have glitches with the word verification or login through blogger. I'm interested in that other commenter gadget mentioned above... Hoping for no spam for you!

Maneki said...

When I first began to blog I didn't require word verification and I got spam. Actually, I still get spam and not allowing anonymous comments don't help as the spammers set up google accounts.

I'm mostly going back and forth between using word verification or moderating all comments before they are published. I've tried both, not sure which I prefer as I like comments to show directly.

Now Blogger has announced their new spam/comment feature, but it's only applied to some blog. In my case, my newest blog has it, but my older blog with many more readers and commenters doesn't have it. Hopefully that's help a bit as well when it's extended to all blogs.

The biggest problems I have with with word verification is a)I can't always correctly read the word as some letters are so distorted and b) depending on how you place the commenting field, the word verification doesn't show up until you've clicked publish your comment. Then you have to write the word -- let's hope you get it right or you might end up with a 503 error! -- and again click to publish the comment. That's not a smooth system. So, no I don't really like it, but I've worried about getting more spam by not using it.

But I'll think I'll try what you are doing here. See how it works.

Hope your test will work out fine with no spam comments on your lovely blog.

Mosaic Magpie said...

I took it off mine, I don't like that extra step when trying to leave a comment. I do have the comment moderator on though. Before it is published, I can see what it says and reject it if I want to.
Debbie

LLYYNN - Lynn Davis said...

Andrew, since Blogger enabled the Spam Detection on my blog, it's been catching the crazy spam I was getting. So I removed the comment moderation, and so far it's been working great. If you don't have it on your blog, you could try emailing Blogger to see if they'll turn it on for you ... it's saved me a lot of hassle.

Create With Joy said...

HI Andrew

I removed the word verification off of my blog quite some time ago (still have comment moderation on) and am happy to report that my spam is minimal - some from time to time, but not enough, in my opinion, to turn it back on.

There is a new spam detection feature that is being rolled out on blogger that is also working nicely so far! You still have to check your spam box - so far it has caught all of my spam and has only put 1 comment in the box that I approved as non-spam - but is one of the improvements I am pleased with so far!

Best of luck - if you have probs, consider the no word verification / comment moderation combo - to me, it's the best of both worlds as it does not prevent legitimate people from posting and ensures I see all of the comments people have left!

Ramona
http://create-with-joy.blogspot.com

Shai Williams said...

I hope that the test works out well as I hate the word verification especially if I have gone through all that just to be told that my comment will appear after the blog owner approves it. I have to say that is really annoying, If the blog owner approves the comments then why did I have to jump thru the hoops? I tend to unfollow at that point.