CAPTCHA THIS!

I've been reluctant to write about the subject of "captchas" or word verification settings used more frequently than not by bloggers accross the internet. I would SO hate to alienate the wonderful, creative people who find them necessary, but feel the time has come to address the issue.

Let me first say that I've only been blogging a short time, a little over a year, so perhaps I lack a clear understanding of their use.

From what I've read, word verification is necessary to prevent auto-commenting, or spammed comments on your blog. The idea being that a machine is unable to replicate the captcha word, so to prove an actual human being is leaving a comment, one must use one's fingers to type in the random word. Right so far?

For "Blogger" bloggers, there's an additional security setting called "comment moderation" which allows blog authors to review comments before they're published in the comment section of the blog. Double whammy for spammers, right?

The problem is that the extra step of having to verify the captcha word when leaving other people comments is frankly a huge pain in the ass and completely unnecessary, especially if you're using comment moderation too.

Word verification and comment moderation features on both my blogs are set in the OFF position and always have been. To date I've never recieved a spammed or automated comment. If anyone reading this has more information on the issue, I'd love to hear about it. You can leave a comment and not have to verify a word to do so.

On the other hand, if you have your word verification setting in the ON position for no particular reason, PLEASE TURN IT OFF. In the long run, you'll be saving readers of your blog boat-loads of time.. ... ...