RESURRECTING AN OLD GROAN

Question: why prove we're not robots when a comment goes on a blog anyway?

Yes, those pain-in-the-neck CAPTCHAs are back, some more half-hearted than others. Now we either have to copy the text or tick a box (I gather robots can’t click buttons to insert a tick) or both, none of which I wish to do.... nor do I have to in most cases. My choice, then, so why bother?

The latest has to be seen to be believed... about nine fairly large pictures of cakes appeared. I guess I was supposed to select one but I ignored it and sent my comment without doing anything. I’m still trying to work out the point of it. It’s amazing we’re not asked for fingerprints or some form of ID.  Why can’t we just put a notice on our blogs saying ROBOTS NOT ALLOWED!!

Hmm I might just do that!

There are some blogs that don’t require this silly check on people because bloggers have taken the time to change their settings to avoid causing irritation to their visitors. Now I am wondering if bloggers don’t know that their blogs have been subjected to the new style CAPTCHA ... or that their settings can be changed. For their benefit here’s the instruction that can be found in Settings – Posts and Comments:

Settings  ›  Posts and comments

Comment Location ?
Who can comment?	Anyone - includes Anonymous Users   Registered User - includes OpenID   User with Google Accounts   Only members of this blog
Comment Moderation ?	Always   Sometimes   Never

Clicking NEVER in the COMMENT MODERATION section works wonders. 

In case you didn't know, selecting REGISTERED USER prevents anonymous visitors from commenting. 

I’d love to have your thoughts on this subject. 

Having another moan...

It’s complaint time, at least for me.

First of all, why is it that some blogs still retain the ‘subscribe by email’ button when others have had it removed? I really miss this facility. Are there too many emails flying around ... is that the problem?

A blogging friend uses his blog to encourage participation from followers, which was great fun, but now the subscription service has (mostly) gone it means we must visit repeatedly on the off-chance there will be more dialogue to read and respond to. How do you feel about losing the provision of subscribe by email?

Seems to me the new system is doing its best to isolate us from friends. It’s like losing out on conversations, he said, I said, and then he replied, and ... so on. I wonder if it’s just me that feels this way?

All this on top of the other old chestnut, word verification, is driving me nuts.
Most are complaining about the new style captcha and a lot of us have vetoed it, but those that haven’t might be wondering why their followers are not answering back. Is it worth even responding to comments since they quite possibly won’t be seen?

RSS feed is/was another way of seeing post comments but that doesn’t seem to be working either. Is Disqus the way forward?

Since writing the above I have discovered that the new Blogger template caters for 'subscribe by email' as noticed on my WI blog. It's these old templates that have been updated - or should I say downgraded. Bah!