Tag: Spam

Comments and CAPTCHA

In my Using CAPTCHA for Comments post, I described the need to use CAPTCHA to help keep spam under control. Using CAPTCHA has dramatically reduced the amount of spam the blog is receiving and provides a nicer environment everyone. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t need CAPTCHA, but the spammers have other ideas. So, this is one of those situations where everyone has to pay for the misdeeds of the few and I truly am sorry I had to implement this solution.

Of course, anti-spam solutions are only good if they actually do the job. This solution does keep the spam under control and many readers have written to tell me that it works better than the CAPTCHA solutions used on other sites. I want things to be easy and workable for everyone. This solution also seems to be doing a better job of keeping the spammers at bay than other solutions I’ve tried, so it’s both easy and effective—a rare combination.

A reader mentioned yesterday that he couldn’t get the CAPTCHA I selected for the site to work. The CAPTCHA solution doesn’t want to accept the input he’s providing. What I’m trying to do at the moment is track down what is happening because I want everyone to be able to post comments as needed. If you’re having problems using the CAPTCHA on this blog, please let me know at [email protected].

Please provide specifics on what you’re seeing to make it easier for me to hunt the problem down. If you could also let me know which OS and browser you’re using, that would be helpful. I need as much information as possible to determine whether I can fix the problem or whether I have to work with the CAPTCHA provider to fix it. I’m hoping the problem is limited to a few people and that there will be an easy fix, but I need good information to make this determination. Thanks, as always, for your help!

 

Using CAPTCHA for Comments

It’s an unfortunate sort of thing, but the one percent who cause problems often dictate the restrictions on the ninety-nine percent who don’t. I had hoped when I moved to my new blog software that I might be able to get by without using a tool to ensure someone commenting actually is a human. People had complained about the previous version of my Completely Automated Public Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) software. It was hard to see at times, even harder to work with. The bad news is that you’ll be dealing with CAPTCHA again on this blog whenever you make a comment. Several hundred spam posts every day make it clear that I really can’t avoid it, much as I might like to do so.

Now for the good news. Unlike the old blog software, I have access a whole host of CAPTCHA solutions when working with the new blog software. I’ve come up with what I hope is a less difficult means of keeping the spammers at bay. No, I won’t thwart all of them, but I’m determined to come up with a solution that makes life easier for the majority and a whole lot harder for the minority. Perhaps they’ll get the idea and go bother someone else for a while.

I do want your feedback. Does this new CAPTCHA solution seem to work for you? If so, please leave a comment to this particular post. This is one situation where I’d prefer you not contact me through e-mail. I want people to try the comment system and let me know how they feel about it. Thanks, as always, for your support of my blog.