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My "Comments" Dilemma
October 24, 2006
Okay, so I'm facing a challenging decision here.
When you comment on this blog, you'll see that you're faced with a captcha.
I went through a period before Typepad implemented this, where I would get so many spam comments, I almost considered turning off comments entirely. (I actually did turn off trackbacks for a while, because I was getting the weirdest spam trackbacks, too.)
Back then there was also a time lag between when comments were submitted and when they were published because I had everything set so that each comment had to be approved first. I don't do this now that I have the captcha turned on.
But I'm having a problem with the captcha. I have trouble reading the letters and numbers when I'm writing a comment in response to someone else's comment!
I don't know - does anyone else have this problem when they comment here?
(I know - you'd think I'd get a Typekey account but it's just something I've never gotten around to.)
I just checked, and Typepad doesn't offer the option of letting comments be published automatically as long as the user/email address has had one previously approved comment.
I want to turn off the captcha, because I'm thinking if I'm having problems with it, others must be, too.
So my dilemma is, should I set comments to be approved first, or just have all comments automatically be published, and I can go back in later and delete any spam? Anyone have an opinion?
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Posted by BJ at 04:47 PM in On Blogging | Permalink
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Does TypePad have the option where you have to approve comments the first time around for commenters and then any other comments made to the blog from those people who have been approved just post automatically?
I think if you left the comments open you'd be in for a lot of clean up... and might end up wasting more time than not.
Posted by: Empress | Oct 24, 2006 5:42:00 PM
I thought it was just my bad eyesight :) I have problems reading those too and often have to do it multiple times for getting it wrong... but I have it on my blog just because the spam was too much at the time I did it... now... how to get the spam off my forums...
Posted by: jenn | Oct 24, 2006 6:02:14 PM
No, I can't set it to automatically let comments through where the authors have already been approved before, unfortunately.
Jen, I am glad to hear you've been having problems too! For me, it's that speckled gray background that gets me.
I think I will turn the captcha off (I've got to look up that word to see how to spell it, every single time I use it!) but set comments to be approved first. Better than having a spammy looking page and then doing clean-up :)
Posted by: BJ | Oct 24, 2006 10:55:19 PM
