Wednesday, August 4, 2010

About comment boxes...

I thought I would take a moment to rant here. I do that once in a while although in the recent past I have not done much of that.

Today I will talk about the comment boxes.

As we all know blogger has introduced the embedded comment box, and it has been a while now. Somehow I don't find it user friendly, especially if one uses word verification. Why do I have to click it at least thrice to get my comments through? It truly pisses me off.

I also don't like the intensedebate way of commenting. It also takes a while and I kind of desist from commenting there unless , it is something I can't miss.

Open id is a good way. Wordpress uses it, although it is somewhat different. Commenting on wordpress blogs is a pleasure.

I don't mind comment moderation and/or word verification, but both being used together, is not a good option. Have either of the two, not both. I didn't have either but due to spam, I have resorted to word verification. And any comment older than two weeks, goes into moderation.

We all thrive on comments. And the least we can do is to make it easy for our visitors to leave their foot prints.

That's all I gotta say for now. I do welcome your inputs too.

18 comments:

Serena said...

i agree with you

Marce said...

What makes me angry is when I can't figure out the word verification, sometimes it is way to creative looking to figure out.

Doing it once is fine but more than that pisses me off.

Nikki in Niagara said...

I agree on the embedded and intensedebate (that just won't work for me half the time!) so I hardly bother now.

I hate word verification but have been resorted to using it when being hit by spammers. I reluctantly tried both together once but it didn't make a difference so I have decided to just stick with moderated comments, I wish I didn't have to. But there is no way I'm going to give the spammers the satisfaction of having their comments see the light of day on my blog.

I swear there is a warehouse full of people in China and one of them has the single job of filling out the comment forms on my blog every single day. First it was completely in Chinese characters but now, just recently, I notice they have started including an English sentence such as "I like your page" or "smart advice" after all the characters. It can drive a blogger slowly crazy.

But now I open my email and go straight to the Chinese characters and with a smile on my face simply hit "reject, reject, reject, etc.".

OK, that hit a nerve. I'm done now.

Nise' said...

Glad you said it. The embedded comment form in a pain and doubly so with word verification. I also do not like the ones where I have to enter my name, email and blog address, it slows down my browsing. I moderate comments due to spam but have turned off word verification. I tried using just word verification and still got spam related comments.

Is it poor edicate to let the blogger know what a pain it is to leave comments? Some newbies may not know how to best set up their comments.

Unknown said...

Yeah i agree. It a total turn off when you've typed out your thoughts and then click submit only to realise that the comment didn't go through because you got the word verification wrong. That's why i took off that feature from my comment page.

Bernadette said...

I comment far less often on blogger blogs now - can't be bothered repeating the word verification over and over. Wordpress has a brilliant spam filter that works on about 99.9% of spam comments and I've no clue why blogger can't have something similar to prevent the need for all this verification nonsense - for heaven's sake blogger is owned by google who have a brilliant spam filer in use within gmail, they could surely apply the technology to blogger as well.

Alyce said...

Embedded comment forms are especially a pain for people using Firefox. I've enabled 3rd Party cookies which makes it a bit easier, but I don't think a lot of people out there realize the headaches they can cause.

Emidy @ Une Parole said...

I really, really dislike the intensedebate system, too! Sometimes my comment doesn't go through, it takes forever to fill in all of those boxes, and there's no icon! I find the original blogger comment system the most solid and easy way.

CMash said...

I agree with Nise regarding having to fill out name email address and blog URL. Some days I pass on commenting on those blogs. I have moderation, just in case of spammers, but not verifications to make it easier for those who do comment.
CMash

Anna said...

I agree. When I was with blogger I used comment moderation on older posts, and that virtually eliminated the spam comments.

Word verification is a pain in the butt since many times I can't read the darn letters, and the embedded comment boxes often make commenting too difficult.

Anonymous said...

I agree. I have found a problem with Wordpress though. If you are entering a few comments on the same post like for a contest, it will only take so many and then tell you "slow down, you're commenting to fast". I don't like that.

Lisa Richards/alterlisa said...

I agree totally. I have gotten to the point if my word verification doesn't work or my comment doesn't go through the first time, I just leave without commenting especially if my three or four sentence comment disappears and not just to be moderated.

Marg said...

Totally agree on embedded comments, and Disqus and Intense Debate.

Surely I am not the only person who finds at least one aspect of Wordpress commenting annoying though?

I really hate that you click the box to say Subscribe to Comments, and then you get an email saying do you really want to subscribe and then have to go to another screen where you click to subscribe.

I already said yes. Why do I have to do so three times.

Anonymous said...

I agree. Commenting should not frustrate me!

Nat said...

Agree with this...I hate having to work so hard to leave a comment!

Jodie Robson said...

Thank you for this! I hadn't realised that I had both word verification and comment moderation on, on my blog - I've turned off word verification, to see how that works out. Is it a coincidence, I wonder, that the word verification I can see here is "curse"?

Kaye said...

After having just been so aggravated at another site with captcha, which I detest with a passion, I agree with you on all points. Why make it hard for people to comment. One blogger I really like I rarely comment now because every single time I have to fill in name and e mail address. Too annoying for words!

Deepali said...

Totally agree, it is a peeve of mine too to have to validate so many things to just go make a comment.
The wordpress comment box is my fav too :)

I actually dont have the word verification or the comment moderation on...and it is working great. Blogger keeps the weird comments away 99% of the time, and I review/delete those once in a while.