kitchen table math, the sequel: help desk

Monday, July 30, 2007

How do I get rid of knicksgrl?

Doug Sundseth said...: I suggest you turn on CAPTCHA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha) It's annoying, but it's probably necessary.; July 30, 2007 at 11:34 PM
Catherine Johnson said...: Is that the thing where people have to type in a code? (and yes, I could go over to Wikipedia and check it out instead of asking you!); July 31, 2007 at 6:14 AM
Doug Sundseth said...: Yes. The codes are normally generated randomly and made difficult for optical character recognition to decode. Some bots might still get through, but the frequency should drop quite a bit.

FWIW, I know of at least one blog (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/) that uses a static code, but since it's uncommon the bots aren't optimized to get past it. He reports that he has effectively no comment spam.; July 31, 2007 at 8:23 AM
Instructivist said...: My two cents on spam:

If it gets out of hand, turn on Blogger's word verification feature (Settings -> Comments).

I had a spam problem at my site. It went away after I turned on the verification feature. Since it is a nuisance, I turned it off again after a brief period. Spam did not resume.; July 31, 2007 at 8:48 AM
Barry Garelick said...: C'mon, Catherine; why do you want to put an end to my summer cash flow?; August 2, 2007 at 1:18 PM