Feb 22, 2012

A Plea

To those of you/us using Blogger as your blogging platform,

Please figure out a way to turn off Word Verification on your blog.  Please, please, please.

Recently, Blogger decided to enable Word Verification on every single blog.  And, unlike the previous voluntary Word Verification captchkas, they've made them nearly impossible to decipher.  Here's a random example of one that is almost legible.


imprison (?), ackgreer (?)

Go ahead. Make it bigger. It's still not going to make it any more legible. Why they felt the need to make one word all fuzzy and then use back-color to make the second word harder to see, I'll never know. And, like I said, this is one of the easier ones I've seen.  Sometimes it takes me 2 or 3 tries to get one that I can actually read. It's ridiculous!

So I figured out how to disable it on my blog. I hate that I hate to figure out how to disable something I never enabled in the first place, but that's another story.  There's a catch, though. You have to switch your Blogger editor back to the old editor to change the Settings on your Comments. The new Blogger Editor doesn't even have the option to turn Word Verification either on or off. It's ridiculous times two!

Wanna know what is really bugging me about this? I was using the Beta version of the new Blogger Editor called "Blogger in Draft".  So I always had the choice to switch back to the old Editor.  But since I did this, I inadvertently switched back to the new Editor which is no longer in Beta testing. So now I have no way of getting back to the old Editor should the need ever arise.  It's ridiculous to the third power!

So please, try to figure out a way to turn off your Word Verification if you can.  I know some of you have had issues with spam, as I have in the past. But I fixed that by selecting Comment Moderation on posts older than 7 days. If spammers want to hit me on my most recent posts...well, I guess I'll have to live with that. Because this new Word Verification system sucks ass!

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Fantasy Baseball Update - Still waiting to hear if more than 2 of you want to do this. I could open it up to some others how might be interested, but I kinda wanted this to be for my Bloggy and Tweety buds. Joining a league with folks you don't know can lead to some awkward moments.

Case in point, a couple of years ago I joined a league with a bunch of people at Gia's former job. I didn't know any of them, but I did it as a favor to her and her friend who ran the league.. Because I didn't know any of them, it was more difficult for me to engage them in trades or what-not. Then I was able to convince one of them to complete a trade with me (it was actually his suggestion) late in May. Like all my trade offers, I thought it would help both of our teams. I'm never one of those guys looking to rip someone off. I hate that. But I hate being accused of it even more. Which is exactly what happened in this case. Not by the guy I was dealing with, but another owner. This league had a veto rule. If half the league vetoed a trade, it wouldn't go through. Initially, this one owner was the only one who vetoed it. Then he started an email protest campaign against it and me, convincing the other owners in the league that I was ripping off the other guy and that it was THE WORST TRADE IN THE HISTORY OF FANTASY BASEBALL!!!  I wasn't even the one who initiated the trade in the first place, yet I was the asshole here. So he convinced the rest of the league to nix the trade. Whatever. But at the end of the year, he posted a note on the league message board that we were all saps. The trade he got vetoed was fair...beyond fair.  He just didn't want to see it happen for whatever reason.  He thought that was real funny that he was able to do that. I told him it made him look like a little bitch. He wasn't happy with that. Whatever. I wasn't re-upping for the next year anyway and Gia was leaving that job. So fuck that guy. Anyway, that's one of the reasons why I don't like being in leagues with people I don't know. Ya know?

16 comments:

That Hank said...

Just hit the circle arrow until you get one you can see clearly. That's what I do. But the comment forms that have you drop down a menu to pick who you are won't work for me on this computer at all.

Dave2 said...

These things just keep getting harder and harder to figure out. Sometimes I just give up rather than comment because my guesses aren't getting through.

Verdant Earl said...

Hank - Yeah, I see that little circle to get a new one. How about they make the words a little less difficult to read instead?

Dave2 - I haven't given up yet.
Mostly because my words are too important to the world. Ahem. But that day is coming.

Slyde said...

i have never had word verification on my blog, and i never will. Do you really get that much spam? i dont.

I just put comment moderation on for any post older than 1 week. I get tons of spam in my spam folder, but it never gets to my site at all... problem solved.

Heff said...

Thanks for making ME feel better Earl.

Lately I've had a MOTHERFUCKER of a time leaving you cats some comments because I CAN'T READ THE F'IN VERIFICATION CODES !!!

Verdant Earl said...

Slyde - Not so much anymore. I do the same thing as you with comment moderation. But remember my Taiwanese friend from about a year ago? He/she/it hit you too, if I recall.

Heff - It's all about you, buddy.

sybil law said...

I meant to bitch about the word verification thing, too - so I'm glad you did! Seriously - it's fucking awful.
I can go ahead and try to be in the Fantasy baseball thing, but really- I don't know what I'm doing!! It would be FUN, I think, if someone would just coach me a little! Last time, I asked questions, but no one wanted to help me. It was ridiculous. Guess they were all scared I'd smoke 'em. :)

Verdant Earl said...

Sybil - No problem. As of right now we still need a bunch of folks to join, but if it happens then I'll assist you in any way you need.

Unknown said...

Oh I absolutely hate those things.

I'll go check my settings right away. Thanks for the heads up...for all I know I've been making all twelve of my readers suffer needlessly by verification bullshit - as opposed to the usual, my terrible writing.

Slyde said...

p.s. i have always stuck with the "old" blogger, but just for the heck of it i just now switched to the new one.

blah! it took me all of 5 minutes to put it back to the old one...

marty mankins said...

My blogger blog (which is not my Banal Leakage blog) kept it's "never" settings for comment moderation.

Avitable said...

I hate Blogger in general - move to Wordpress and you won't have any of those issues!

Sorry that I don't have any interest in the fantasy baseball thing. It's just not my thing.

hello haha narf said...

i would like a baseball bat and a dark room with all the spammers who make verification issues exist. assholes.

Verdant Earl said...

Adam - I tried a blog on Wordpress and didn't really like it. I think any platform has it's foibles. This is one of them for Blogger.

white rabbit said...

I'm glad it's not just me getting old and blind!


As a variant in Hank's idea just type in 'knobjockey' or somesuch until it becomes legible ...

Neeroc said...

Well that explains a lot! I had no idea why I was getting so many verifications these days. AND I've even gotten ones with non-alpha/# symbols. I've just skipped the words and still get posted. What the? Blogger is also driving me nuts because it really doesn't play nice with my openID/wordpress ID.