Commenting Update

Posted by Pixelhead

As David Hopkins suggested in the Freakin Spam post comment, I have added the CaptCha plugin that uses actual text images from vintage books to make sure commentators are humans Captcha image and not bots. By using this plugin you can help to digitize some old books. Sounds pretty cool to me, but as long as it reduces the Spam that has plagued me recently I will be more than a happy camper. I believe I first heard about the pluggin from Steli of SuperCoolSchool, but I could be mistaken.

I also am not sure if it will do anything to the page load times or anything, but I will monitor it and uninstall if I find it slows load times down tremendously.

I also just activated the DoFollow Pluggin, that I had installed a while ago, and forgot to activate…oops…I had gone into the template and changed the “No Follow” to “Follow”, but had not done it so that links left in the actual comments would be “Do Follow”. Links in the comment name url link box were Do Follow, but links left in the actual comment were “No Follow”. So activating the Do Follow plugin has enabled links in the comments to not have the “No Follow” tag. Thanks again to Clive for letting me know about the “No Follow” in the comments.
I will be monitoring links within the comments and will only allow relevant links.

Update 11/8/2007: I have deactivated the re-Captcha due to complaints. However, if the spam starts up again, I will reactivate.

Several recommendations I would like to be made while using it the Recaptcha Pluggin include:

Must also work on placing it above the comment submit button.
When activated, the comments do not show up underneath the individual posts, you must actually click on the comments link to see any comments that have been made on the post.

Written by Pixelhead on November 1st, 2007 with 7 comments.
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7 comments

Read the comments left by other users below, or:

Frank C
#1. November 3rd, 2007, at 11:03 PM.

I don’t like CAPTCHA’s that much. They do block spam but they also may drive off commentators that would enhance your blog. For example, I had to refresh yours 3 times before I got something readable.

The way I’m dealing with the situation now beyond Akismet is to require any comment with a link in them to be moderated as well as any comment with certain common spam keywords in them.

Ross from Hatchthat.com
#2. November 4th, 2007, at 3:26 AM.

Have you found commenting to increase or decrease after the change? I would think having the captcha box below the submit button would confuse some people.

Pixelhead
#3. November 4th, 2007, at 4:07 AM.

Frank, thanks for letting me know about the poor visibility.

Ross, I think it might be a little to early to tell about the increase or decrease, but I think your right about confusing with the captcha below the send comment button. I actually just clicked the send button and forgot to do the captcha, so I ended up having to redo my comment.

I might also just leave it on for a short duration to see if I can get the spam bots to drop this site from their list.

Mention from Sesantos.com.ph
#4. November 4th, 2007, at 9:55 AM.

SONNIE’S PORCH: LinkLove better than DoFollow Plugin?... update (11/04/07): Dexter explained in his blog what differentiates a dofollow blog from a nofollow blog. ...

Harry Potter
#5. November 4th, 2007, at 2:25 PM.

I think the CAPTCHA in this instance is pretty odd. You could easily try and leave a comment without even realising it was there!

You should try and put it before the message box or submit button if that is possible.

Pixelhead
#6. November 4th, 2007, at 3:10 PM.

Harry, I am happy to have the famous Harry Potter comment on PixelHead. I think your right, I will be moving it asap.

By the way, did you hear a rumor about another Harry Potter book?

Sonnie, Thanks for the link, and thanks for writing about the LinkLove pluggin. I am going to be using it on PixelHeadonline. When I install it, will the pluggin be retroactive, that is will commentators that have left more than the minimum comments benefit from it?

Richard Metcalfe
#7. June 18th, 2008, at 10:41 PM.

I have herd a few people have trouble with this commenting CaptCha because is asks for to words to fill in. You would be surprised at how many people just don’t bother with it. But i suppose if they right quality comments then you should understand a quality CaptCha.

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