Spam is everywhere. I am very grateful that wp.com has Akismet which is a spam catcher and catches pretty much all the spam. According to them 95% of all comments on blogs are spam. That is incredible. Have a look on the site for more statistics.
Other sites don’t have Akismet and rely on other forms of spam catching. One of them being ‘Captcha’. Captcha stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart [Can you guess why they shortened it?!] and it is basically impossible to read by computers.
Now I agree that there are way too many spambots on forums and blogs and that there is some sort of protection needed, but Captcha is just so annoying. Most times it’s impossible to decipher it, it doesn’t always load the image or sometimes just doesn’t accept the input.
Take my friends blog over on blogger for example. Even if I’m logged on to my account there, it still requires me to enter the Captcha. Or say you want to submit a story over on Digg. You guessed right, Captcha again.
It takes a lot of time away and it’s frustrating. Someone should come up with something better. I am now going to boycott sites that use Captcha. If you are wondering of the randomness of this post, well, I am very annoyed at the moment, I might elaborate later on it. All the images were obtained within ten minutes of doing normal everyday things on the internet and just so much time was wasted with it.
Cat
14 Comments
Surely the best way would be to cut down on the amount of Bots delivering Spam, it’s the same all the time though.
Companies never deal with the actual problem just try and treat the side effects. So instead of trying to stop these Spam Bots they are simply trying to make it harder for them to deliver Spam….You need a two-pronged attack.
Like my Military Style Plan :p
LOL Military Style. What style is that?
Ah i hate spam so much its so annoying, and i agree companies never try and completely remove spam and bots they simple make a quick and easy way to slow it down.
Cat, you already had a taste of Spam on my blog today… remember those folks who forgot their URL? :D
I hate Captcha as those images time-out almost 80% of the time over my dial-up. I’d rate the Did you pass math Anti-Spam plugin higher than Akismet, although like Tob says we need something better.
Yeah, even I’d like to hear the Military style plan. :lol:
I feel as if I have let you all down, my Military plan was simply a two-pronged attack :( Just basically get rid of the problem and those that are feeding it.
So what you’re saying D is that you want to get rid of the Spam bots? That’s a great idea and I’m all for it, but I don’t see how it could be done?
Military style does sound good though. :)
You see, I thought Akismet was good, but considering that Ashish’s and Ish’s Blog were overun by these bad kids who didn’t even put their URL in, I’m not too sure.
The maths one is good, but it doesn’t always work. So many times have I commented on ‘Sprites and Bites’ or ‘Just Thinkin” lately and it didn’t let me through, even though I answered the question correctly. It’s gone so far that I now registered on Beckys blog.
D, what’s your plan? Burn them? :P
I get LOADS of spam on my blog. Used to get about 15 a day. Normally about enlarging my penis. Don’t worry I deleted them. It’s big enough thank you very much.
15 a day is a lot to you? I get around 100-200. A day. You running Akismet? Or do you have comment moderation?
And LOL! :D
Yea Sorry about that Tob3z, it was just funny and I’m not doing anything else at the moment. I suppose I’m just insecure…lol
lol. Since running Akismet I haven’t got one. I started using Akismet about 2 months ago I think.
Please don’t boycott my blog. :(
Seriously though. As you previously read, I’ve taken down the math equation for comments when I installed the Bad Behavior plugin. The Contact form still has a math equation but that template is built into the theme itself and i know the math equation works the first time.
the only time you might see a Captcha is if Spam Karma 2.x suspects a commentor is coming from a very suspicious source which at that point will throw a Captcha in the commenter’s way just to make sure they’re human. Happens only rarely though.
Glad you’re back at it. When are you going to “host your own”? :P
BTW, I find it amazing that one can achieve a Page Rank of 5 out of 10 just by complaining.
Mind boggling indeed! :D
Perhaps I should complain more myself.
Come on, D, you can do better than that, surely?
I’m fully back at it now, Kirk. :) I didn’t realise you had Captcha on? I know of the maths question which didn’t give me any problem last time when I commented. I do hope I doesn’t think that I am a suspisious source, I am human. Last time I checked anyway. ;)
Do you offer registration on your blog?
I do have my own domain and another domain and space. My own domain is just resting at the moment, I didn’t want it to be taken. As for the other one, it’s just to mess about with it. It has a wordpress install and I might create some sort of page/main site with it, but I don’t quite think I’ll be leaving wordpress.com anytime soon. I like it here and I don’t trust myself selfhosting it. Not yet and not for a while. :)
Page rank 5 out of 10? I am curious…? And complaining is definitely the way to go. :)
I HATE captcha!!!!!! i dont think i can fully express how much i hate captcha! i dont think i can boycott websites that use it but i think going forward i will email the companies to let them know. thx for giving me a place to vent.
You’re welcome!