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Monday, February 16, 2009
Word verification: Necessary or a huge pain?
My friend Sherri over at Matter Of Fact posed a question yesterday on her blog about word verification on blog comments. Her question was is word verification on comments necessary?
Currently I have word verification on comments on all my blogs. I’m really starting to rethink them though. Sherri included two links on her blog to posts that argued against word verification and the ladies that wrote those posts had valid points.
Then looking around this morning for posts written in favor of word verification, I was surprised at the very low number that I found. And I actually didn’t find even one post proclaiming word verification was a great thing. Not one. (I should add here that I only looked for about 45 minutes so I probably could have found one if I had continued but honestly, I was bored.) The only positive comments that I found were in comments on posts questioning the need for word verifications.
That’s when I decided that I too would run a poll about word verification and its necessity or its problems, whichever applies to you. You can find it in the top right hand corner on this blog. I’ll leave it up for 30 days. I’m really interested in the outcome.
Until the poll is over I’m going to keep the word verification on my comment section. After you vote leave a comment on this post (I’ve added a link under the poll…or will have by the time this is posted.) and tell me why you voted the way you did. In 30 days I’ll make the final decision on word verification and my blogs. Who knows, maybe one of you will change my mind about their need.
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9 COMMENTS:
i think it's just a big pain in the butt.....it only makes people want to not post...and spamming isn't that big of an issue anymore
Hi Kathy. I couldn't find your blue Monday post. I tried the last blog, but it wouldn't load. ???
Word verification is the pits. But (gulp!) so is unexpected music...
@ J Cosmo Newbery.. I respect the fact that you don't like music on blogs but my argument with that would be that the music is not against your will. You can turn off your speakers, you can turn off the music player or you can just not visit blogs that have music. (No disrespect intended at all; just my opinion and you are entitled to your opinion as well.) With the captcha's it is completely out of your control. If the blog author has it turned on, you have no choice but to deal with it if you want to leave a comment. On a personal note, I am sorry if my music offended you or startled you though. Thanks for stopping and leaving a comment. Have a good night. --Kathy
I think word verification can be fun. Just ask all you commentors to play mad libs with you and make up definitions for the words.
For example my word is TREPID (tree-pee-id), which, of course,is what my son does to every tree he finds and then blames the tree...LOL
Ah true, point taken. But turning my speakers off does not stop the stuff downloading, it just stops it playing. Which is an imposition on my internet account, no? Anyway, Mamma Kat has set the task of writing about our pet peeves, perhaps this is the inspiration I need to leap forth in print?? Sancho! Bring me my quill!
I don't really mind it so much. I just think it is kinda funny - crazy words come up and it doesn't really take all that much time. I really do not want spam on my blog!!! So I'd rather put up with word verification.
See my thoughts about the funny side of it on my blog for today. :)
Your word verification this time is
"calit" .... so could mean "call it". LOL. I kindof enjoy seeing what'll come up next.
I don't know why, but I find this format of a blog kind of confusing, especially at the end...but I somehow did m anage to find your poll.
Either I missed it or it wasn't on there, but "White Christmas" is my all time favorite (a classic) and of course "The Grinch" with Jim Carrey...I can watch that all day long ;-)
I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season so far and Merry Christmas!
word verification isn't necessary if you have it set up to authorize comments by the author of the blog before posting - then you can just not post anything that might be inappropriate...right?
I have to check and see how my blog is set up - I forgot - but on an upside, looking at some of those silly words that word verification spits out, some of them would make cute pet names (he, he, he)
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