Saturday, February 18, 2012

We're not Robots

Hate is a strong word. When I say I hate word verification, I wish there was a stronger to use.

When you run across a life-changing post and all you want to do is thank the author for inspiring you to be the best you you can be, it's maddening to have to decipher cryptic word verifications before you can share your gratitude. It's bad enough when you have to retype one word, but so often it's two.

I usually fail at least once.

I've been a bad blog hostess, though. Word verification was turned on for Sewing Over Pins, and I didn't even know it. The SHAME.

Thankfully, the amazing Lucy at Charm About You politely inquired if I would consider turning word verification off. I'm sure she did not envision my gasp of horror and my husband and I running off to investigate the travesty, but. I'm. So. Glad. She. Asked.

It turns out there's not a way to turn off word verification in Blogger's new interface. (The only one I've ever used.) Many thanks to Stupid Blog Tricks for providing excellent instructions on navigating to the old Blogger interface to turn off word verification.

There are fantastic articles on blog etiquette like this one from Independent Fashion Bloggers and this one. from Christina Lee. Unless you're really being attacked by spam, the time for word verification has come and gone.

According to Stupid Blog Tricks "Word verification is an outdated method for blocking spam that even Blogger has deprecated in its system.  They actually now have a very effective spam blocking filter that runs behind the scenes and don't recommend using word verification anymore."

Long story short, if a blogger has word verification turned on, don't hesitate to politely ask if they would consider disabling it. Like me, they may be thrilled you called it to their attention!

Craft on!

14 comments:

  1. Dear Claire:
    I bow down before you and thank you for this post. I had no idea my blog even HAD word verification, let alone that I could turn it off. Thank you thank you thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you! I detest and abhor word verification (if I knew more synonyms for hate, I'd use them too!) Some of the verification programs aren't awful, because all you do is type in a nonsense word, but some are downright illegible, with their scrawly half-black and half-white type. It's especially difficult on a smartphone because the letters are so much smaller, and I'm getting older so teeny tiny illegible type is no longer my friend, if it ever was.
    I've often wondered why people use it. I wondered if they got tons of spam comments and that I had somehow been blessed by the Gods and didn't. Now I know. Some perfectly lovely people don't realize they have it on. Hmmm, I guess I should check to see if I do......

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thank you so much for spreading the word about the dreaded verification!!
    I am asking everyone I read that has it on to turn it off, it's really driving me crazy! I agree it's not needed and I will feel a lot less stress not having to prove I'm not a robot ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well pat yourself on the back, lady! You've definitely inspired me to do the same. I'm so glad you let me know about mine :-D

      Delete
  4. lol. so glad there was an easy way around this. i knew it was going on but couldn't figure out how to stop it, assumed it was a fact of life i couldn't get around! here's to a word-verification-free blogland!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I had no idea it was even there. Thanks for highlighting it. I have now switched mine off =D

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks so much for this post! I didn't think I had it on but I checked, and I did. oops! Especially now that blogger has changed the format of the verification words I'm so glad I'm rid of it.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Thank you so much for this post. Lately I've been having trouble leaving comments on blogger blogs because no matter how many times I type in the captcha correctly it says it isn't correct. Or it flashes the captcha for less than 2 seconds and I can't even get the cursor into the field, much less copy the word. I'd say I end up not being able to leave at least 1/3 of the comments I write. So if it is a blog I haven't commented on before I now hesitate and often don't take the time to leave a thoughtful or well written comment, because chances are it's going to be a waste of time. And then I feel bad, because the post really does deserve a thoughtful reply, but I have an almost 2 year old and very limited time for blog reading and comment leaving. So I test the waters with an inane, easy comment to see if it gets in. It's frustrating. Thank you for getting the word out!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Huh. I have been wondering if I have word verification on my blog, but I keep forgetting to ask someone that comments regularly. I turned it off, thanks for the information!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hi Claire, thanks for helping to make the blogger world a better place!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you for that link! I just discovered to my horror that word verification was still on, on my blog! Awful! Hopefully I've remedied that now.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thank you for drawing attention to this! I'm spreading the word too!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for that! I too despise the word verification. I am occularly challenged (read - bit blind) and have trouble seeing the bloody letters! Am off to switch it off now. All the best!

    ReplyDelete
  13. I turned it off a long time ago....and it has gotten increasingly hard to read the words lately...

    ReplyDelete