Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Avoiding CAPTCHA

Blogger’s updated, more difficult word-verification gizmos (aka CAPTCHAs) are tedious at best. At worst, they’re unreadable. As The Real Blogger Status points out, enlarging with Command-+ or Control-+ can make the CAPTCHAs more readable. But a Blogger user might do the reader a greater courtesy by turning off word-verification. That’s now possible only from the old Blogger interface: go to Dashboard, Settings, Comments, and scroll down to “Show word verification for comments?”

Just saying no might lead to an influx of automated spam comments. I turned off word-verification yesterday and have seen more spam comments in a day than in the past two or three years. But I moderate comments, so the spam never makes it to my posts. If deleting the junk saves a reader from having to work out something like the enigma below, I’m happy to do it. If the spam becomes unmanageable, I’ll no longer be able to avoid CAPTCHA.

[Say what‽]

comments: 3

Anonymous said...

Yay! The last couple of times I tried to comment here, I kept getting the captcha wrong and finally gave up in disgust! Now I can comment freely...

Michael Leddy said...

Some people are convinced that even getting the words right doesn’t work, that there’s a bigger problem. For now, at least, the problem’s gone. Comment away!

Elaine said...

Thank you, thank you! The weird waviness (is that a word?), the multiple requirements, and the frustrating red ink refusals are an unnecessary evil in Modern Life....or so I hope!