Do You Use CAPTCHA?

I've been out reading and commenting on other blogs. During my travels I discovered it's more fun for me to comment when I don't have to prove I'm a human.

I know comment spam can be a problem, and I decided to find out how much. So, this is the beginning of my experiment with turning off the CAPTCHA feature in TypePad - you know, that box where you have to type in the letters and numbers before the comment is saved?

What do you think? Which do you prefer?

Comments

[Kirsten Harrell, Psy.D.]

I can't wait to hear about your results. I don't really like to have to do the CAPTCHA box either. However, I was worried about spam so I turned it on for my blog. Let us know how it turns out.
Kirsten

[Kyle Eslick]

Good question Sandra.

CAPTCHA doesn't bother me a bit. It takes a very minimal amount of time, so its not really in the way.

The only time it bugs me is on the rare occasion that the letters/numbers are difficult to read and I keep being told i'm not a human.

For the record, I don't have CAPTCHA enabled on my blog, but I suppose I would consider it if I started having problems with comment spam.

[Mark True]

It only takes one spam comment to get ticked off and turn it on! Then again, there's always the delete comment option.

I don't mind going through the extra step, but sometimes, like Kyle wrote, it's hard to read the letters.

[Christine Kane]

I actually think it's fun to write acronyms to the letters it makes me type. When I comment on Starbucker's blog, I usually write down what my letters are... and then let him know what they stand for. I don't mind it... but I laughed at your sentence, "It's more fun to comment when I don't have to prove I'm a human." FYI - I get TONS of spam comments. Luckily Akismet catches them mostly.

[Sandra Renshaw]

Hi Kirstern, Kyle, Mark and Christine,

Thanks for weighing in on my CAPTCHA post. So far I have no spam - knock on wood. The reason I turned it off is because I was tired of not being able to read the letters and numbers and having to enter it more than once.

I like Christine's idea of making up an acronym. Bet Starbucker loves it! Can't wait until I have TONS of traffic - I'll take the spam with it.
:-)

Sandy

[Carolyn Manning]

Some days I think CAPTCHA was written by an arm of the optometric sector; they're subliminally trying to sell more eyeglasses and contact lenses. Ok, I don't really think that (most of the time) :)

I was thinking, though, that the spammers are the problem, so target their autoresponders. Technology is sophisticated enough that there's probably a way to detect the real comment from a form-letter comment and, simply, disallow the bots.

Carolyn