Friday 9 January 2009

Shaking a fist at a largely uncaring world!

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I'm just feeling like treating myself to a rant about blogs.

Don't worry, I will lie down in a minute and all will be well. Here goes:

1. Word verification.

What are people hoping to achieve with word verification? I have ten blogs (yeah, really. Some inactive, some experimental and one that lets me have a therapeutic outlet without scaring the neighbours), none of them with word verification and I have never had any serious problem with them.

Occasionally some bod (or bot) will post a suspect comment but they often do it in old posts and so no one sees them anyway. When I did the sex blog post on the effect of Viagra on the drooping of cut roses I got a couple (2) dodgy comments but they are easy to delete.

All word verification does is slow up people who are out to comment-graze.

And most of us bloggers want people to post comments; make it easy for them! How many have something like "Please comment, you really want to, go on, just do it" above your comment screen but then have word verification? Mmmm?


2. New format word verification

Most of the blogs that have word verification look like this:


But some of the new ones look like this:



The nasty difference is that the old style word entry field will let you push 'return' after entering the word and publishes your comment.

The newer style one deletes your comment if you hit 'return' instead of clicking 'finish'. A few times, after composing possibly the most brilliant repartee for a blog known to man, I have deleted it accidentally by pushing 'return'.

3. Moderation

I can sort of see the use of moderation if you feel that you have enemies and want to vet the comments before they a posted. But it is no great thing to delete a troublesome comment. It is disconcerting to post a comment and then wonder where it has gone (no chance for last minute speeling apolgies. Sorry.). And, for the mentally challenged like me, I sometimes comment twice on the same blog. Always embarrassing.

So what is the purpose of moderation? I'm not really sure as it is easy to remove unwanted comments. Mind you it is often funnier to leave them there.

4. Moderation AND word verification.

Really, if you are going to moderate the comment anyway, spare us the hoo-ha of word verification. Why have word verification if your are going to moderate anyway?

5. Slow loading blogs.

Some blogs show the last 50 posts and take ages to load. Just show the last 10 or so. Let the occasional interested person click the 'Older Posts' link. That's what it's there for. Widgets, gadgets, awards, fancy backgrounds and all the other 'guff' in the sidebars can take for ever to load. Do you need them all? People have come to read your latest post, not find out the ambient temperature in Irkutsk.

6. Music.

Arrrgh! Your music is part of you, true enough, but I don't necessarily share your taste. And neither does my wife trying to sleep in the next room.

7. Videos.

They can be funny but they are time consuming and bandwidth consuming. Sometimes they are not funny, they are just sweet and twee. I don't do much sweet and twee. At least give some idea of what they are about and how long they will run for.

That's it.

Time for a nice cup of tea and a wee lie down.
...

30 comments:

  1. What is it with the world today? Dan at The Art of Panic has posted about Moderation too. A phase of the moon?

    I have never used word verification. Don't see the need.

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  2. My post was mainly because I am curious about why people enable moderation - hopefully some readers will comment and we can find out.

    I don't find it so much annoying as pointless. I know why the captcha's are added - get one good botnet attack and so will you. But moderate - what are you afraid of?

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  3. I am new to all this blogging so I couldnt quite work out the point of it myself...I will investigate this feature later...

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  4. I view it as another kind of control thing. The blog owner is in charge, dontcha know? They must be important.
    Deleting is easier, when necessary.

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  5. Well now. Yesterday I learned that Antarctica is not owned and governed by any one country (I love second grade - where have I been that I didn't know that already?) and today I learned that had I paid closer attention when setting up my blog, I could have avoided the curse of word verification. I'm always blathering on about paying attention and here I've been brought up short twice in two days!

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  6. thanks for pointing out previouslt the stupidity of word verification. I dunno when I enabled it...but have disabled it now.. its useless.. :) I know!
    as far as moderation, I use it more so that I can see the commments on my previous, past written posts that I have stopped checking...no other intention...
    Other than that, I agree with the other points here..

    By the way, check out my recent post Lee. I linked u in the end.. on your QuotesWebpage I mean. You got me thinking..and thank you for this post!

    love,
    Indy

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  7. Hope the lie down helps.

    I can understand that some people get so many spam emails that they want to try and stop the bots from posting...

    What gets my goat is that some people only allow Blogger/Google users to post comments. I use Wordpress - does that mean you don't want my comment? I usually give up and leave no feedback. OK - I do have a Google account but I don't always want to activate it... takes too much time...

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  8. I agree with LadyFi. Sometimes I'll write a comment but there is just too much to get through in order to post it that I give it up.
    Lillie

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  9. Seriously though - had no idea that word veri was an optional thing and am now going to disable it. As for videos. I hope I've not upset you by posting videos on my site. I will warn you in future on length etc and whether or not the content is "Sweet and Twee". I guess 'cause I've got an industrial strength connection (yes in rural France I have faster Internet connection than mum has EVER experienced anywhere else) I don't have the slow loading problem, but will bear it in mind:)

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  10. Whew. I was worried when I started reading (you know, that 'is he talking about me?' thing) but the only one I might be guilty of is keeping too many posts on my screen. I have to count.

    I'm with you on the verification, though, and it's taken me a while (and a bunch of comments stupidly posted several times) to get the hang of the whole moderation thing. I can't see videos because I can't figure out how to make them work with this new virus protection, so I wish no one would post them (I know that's just me, though) and I do hate it when a blog takes 15 minutes to load because of all the crap. So basically, Lee, I with ya!

    Hope you got more sleep during your lie-down than I did last night. I thought my insommia was over... not so. Sigh.

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  11. I forget what I have set up. Knowing the world it has word verification by default and I am too lazy to change it. I would think that due to what I call the Tyranny of Numbers it is unlikely that I will get a lot of spammers and should turn it off.

    Thanks for the advice— sorry to offend.

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  12. Useful reminder that one can have bad blogging habits, as in anything else. I agree about word verification. I applied it to my autobiography blog when I got a run of a dozen or so totally unrelated comments that took up space, but I shall take it off now.
    Moderation - nah!

    Too much in the sidebar, and videos, guilty of both I reckon. I shall think about those. I did wonder when I started loading videos of my Silver Surfer Award, whether I should put them in a different blog for videos, and maybe slideshows, with links to them from the main blog. Do you reckon that would work?

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  13. Sorry about the word verification. The bots got me in the past and 75 spam comments on each post are something I don't care to repeat.

    Have to agree with the music though. Gets me into trouble at work!

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  14. I have relatives in Irkutsk, dammit! (kidding)

    I sympathize, Lee. I have been struggling to find the right balance between short/sweet and informative/interactive. I have attempting to limit the doo-dads in the sidebars, but those damn things crop up like weeds. Like crows, we are attracted to the bright and shiny...

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  15. Lillie? Was that really you? THE Lillie?

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  16. i hope you awoke in a better mood :D only kidding. going to turn off my word verification.

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  17. Guilty as charged. Not for the word ver but for all the fluff on the sidebars. I'm eventually going to get most of that mishmash onto a separate page. (I don't even want to see it, to tell you the truth.)

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  18. Hope the venting helped...I had some spam comments that just wouldn't stop...had to moderate...don't like to...but it was crazy!

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  19. I do like you. You are guilty of causing the guilty to act. or react. Not to mention you being perpetually guilty of inducing a smile.

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  20. I have no idea about why word verification is there, if the person is able to write a comment then obviously they can 'spell' so of course they can write the verification word.
    So what is the point? If someone really wants to make a comment an extra word is not going to stop them.
    I dont delete comments, only the ones on my blog which I have 'stuffed' up.
    As you know Lee I have music on my sidebar but you do have the choice of listening or not...the other things are there just in case my post is a flop, lol, something else to look at.
    My videos are always music so you at least have some idea who the artist is and whether you want to listen.
    Which reminds me I need a site meter, a weather forecaster, moon phase,hmmm what else? ;-) ♥

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  21. Blogger seems to have rooted out the spam blogs for the moment, and word verifs are a pain, though lately they've been quite entertaining, with words that look like real words but aren't.

    I keep the mute on all the time anyway - Windows' little noises drive me mad anyway - and only turn it on if I want to hear something anyway, so I avoid people's incidental soundtracks. Likewise I only click on videos if the blogger's explained what they are and they sound interesting. I was astonished in my recent foray into video making how long it took to upolad, but then my rural French broadband is about as slow as it could be without being dial-up...

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  22. I think of it as security measures. One is safe, two is safer.

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  24. My issue is when the comment box is not a pop up but a totally new window. With pop up I can comment, and close it and read further on the particular blog, like yours (and mine). When I'm done one click on Back takes me back to my own blog.
    When new window you can't click Back because it takes you back to the blank comment box and back and back again etc 'till you are where you want. Any tips how you get around that one?

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  25. I have had some blog rage today & yesterday. I have tried to keep up with answering all my commenters, & find it so frustrating to go to all the trouble, filling out stupid WV then find a "Your comment will be visible after blog owner approval" GRRRRR!!
    I have been posting vids with music, whereas in the past, I just named an artist & a song. Perhaps I will change back. Never thought about the length of time to load, I suppose. At least you can decide not to listen if you dont care to.

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  26. Actually there are some pretty neat words generated from word verification, I often like to use them in sentences. For example, using your example: I was really stoned at the enduc during the loggela! Heck, I'd appreciate any comment, even if it was from a bot! ;)

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  27. I just said no to word verify quite a while ago. Haven't gotten one spam, bot or gremlin since on any of my blogs (and damn if I don't have a bunch of them).

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  28. Nice one, very useful tips!

    Luckily I do not subscribe to most of the items you mentioned. I do have music through my Youtube link, but you have to make the choice to listen to it with a click. So if you really like my taste in music, go ahead click away, and this way you can also close the door so that your wife doesn't get disturbed. :)

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