About a year ago, I conducted a little survey to collect people's thoughts on what puts them off leaving comments on blog posts they enjoyed reading. The response to this survey has been truly overwhelming and it seemed that the majority of you are put off leaving comments on posts (hosted on Blogger) when there is the dreaded word verification aka captcha is on. As a result, some of you switched the captcha setting off, some bloggers left it on, but most of all, we all plodded along just fine as, let's face it, it was not the end of the world.
Whilst captcha on blogs 1 year later is still, let’s face it again, not the end of the world, Blogger has been gradually making changes to their interface and has rendered the captchas even more difficult to decipher. Put it bluntly, it has become a right pain in the proverbial to comment on blog posts when the captcha setting is on, whether you comment from your computer or even worse, god forbid, from a mobile phone.
It gets worse.
Blogger has been forcing their new interface on people. Whether we should get used to it right away is a separate issue but bottom line is that their new interface doesn't allow the possibility to turn off the captcha setting. The only way to turn the captcha off is to revert to the old Blogger interface, and deactivate the captcha from there. If the new interface has been forced on you, fear not, there is a still a way to revert to the 'old version' of Blogger but I don't know for how long we will still be able to hang on to this old version. Find the ‘cog’ on the right hand side of the corner of your screen, and select ‘old blogger interface’
In other words, if you have the captcha setting on, your readers might be put off leaving comments on your blog. Time is running out, and if you want to switch the captcha, it's now or never as the old blogger will be totally phased out soon and you won't be able to revert to Old Blogger to switch the annoying thing off.
'What about spammers' will you ask? If you're worried that you might suddenly be assaulted by robots and spammers, you can still do something about it and choose to switch the 'comments on approval setting'. I don't need to bother doing that personally. In my 2 years of blogging, I might only have had 2 proper spam comments, and not even one about Viagra or Justin Bieber.
How do you know you have captcha on? Unless you have a reader who is a bit gobby and cheeky like me and will point it out to you, chances are you will never know and your readers will be too shy and polite to comment on it. Besides they need to type the captcha in the first place, to comment about the captcha. Another means you have is to comment yourself on one of your posts, or ask someone to test if for you.
Time is running out. Remove your captcha and make it easier for your readers to communicate with you. They will be eternally grateful.
 | Turn it off, make them happy  |
22 comments:
I can never read the Captcha words. I used to get a lot of spam but I just went over to manual comment accepting which takes care of it.
I agree seeing that on a blog makes me click away even if I enjoyed their post.
Thanks hun, i didn't realise that you could turn it off
:)
Totally agree! And I really don't like the new blogger interface. I found that I could change back last week but it doesn't last long till they force me back on to the blogger. x
I have the new interface and I've removed captcha on my comments (it's under settings; posts and comments; word verification- set it to no!) :)
xGretalRabbitx
YOU scolded me into turning them off. Obviously! ;o)
They are getting ever harder to decipher. They never used to bother me before I went on a 'break' but they're getting bloody impossible now.
Hate them! And they do put me off.
Amen to all of that!! xx
AGREED LILOO! I had NO IDEA I had captcha until you told me, and then I got rid asap! I hate it mostly because I tend to click about very quickly on the internet. I have frequently typed a comment, clicked to submit it, then clicked on to another page at the exact second the captcha box pops up! And it's too late, I've clicked on to a different page! And no way I'm going back and typing my comment again! Liloo, you are like the awesome captcha police, and I am grateful to you because of it! xx
Thanks for that. I reverted to old Blogger, and the Captchas were off. Hopefully they will stay that way!
Absolutely! Captcha is the bane of my existence. It reminds me of those 3D pictures where you have to squint and make them look blurry in order to see them. I do tend to avoid commenting if Captcha is one because they're such a faff!
Well done for calling out Blogger for this ridiculous practice!
You can change it on the new blogger interface... Settings - posts and comments - word verfication - set it to 'no'. Sorted!
I agree that they're getting harder and harder to read... They're a right nightmare these days.
Thank you everyone for your lovely comments!
@rae @bunnirabbit: super super super happy that Blogger has updated that! Thank you for letting us know! :) xx
ugh. i hate captcha. and the new interface. it's not an improvement at all. so annoying.
Yeah, I think i turn it off.. but if you DO see it again Liloo please let me know, thanks!
It took me AGES to figure out how to switch Captcha off (I've had the new interface for ages, I really like it, but that's another story), thanks for this, I'm sure a lot of people will find it useful!
xo
I don't mind it toooo much, I'll still leave my comment, but obviously it's easier without, and I've not got it on my blog. I hate the new Blogger interface though :( xx
I have to be on old blogger because anything new takes me an age to get the hang of anything new, and as for deciphering code - I have to get my children to do it for me, I am that old. Thanks as always for alerting me to stuff that I would know nothing about and for explaining succintly and with kindness.
I genuinely can't decipher captcha. Four tries and I give up.
xxx
Totes agree I hate captcha. Maybe I'm slightly simple but so much of the time I get told I'm typing it in wrong and end up not bothering. Or other times I think I've written and posted the comment and close the window, not realising that captcha was on, so it never got posted.
Blogger is actually really good at detecting spam itself and as you say, approval will sort that out so there is really no need for it. I especially hate it when it's on blogs and they ALSO have approval on! xx
Visit The Other Side Of Cool
Tweet me! @othersideofcool
Liloo, thank you for this post. I thought it was just me who thought they were getting harder to read!
I have the new one and you can turn it off by going into settings then comments!
I turned off my Captcha setting when you did that survey ages ago and I just manually delete the spam comments. Captcha isn't very disability friendly either so I want to make sure everyone can comment without having to worry about reading a bunch of blurred words!
Leave a comment ...