Right, this one is aimed at all you guys who have those fancy templates and word verification on their comments box. Now, I know that because it's your blog, you don't need word verification and so might not be aware of this, but let me take you on a little journey as a visitor to your blog ....
You come across a great blog, you'd like to leave a comment and go to the comment box .......
So, you start typing up your comments and click 'post comment' and you get this ...........
So, how the f*^% am I supposed to post my comment?????
There's no way of telling if the word verification is on or not before you try to post your comment, and so I'm not going even try in future. To all you fancy template blog owners, go to your blog and change the post as to anonymous, you'll see what I mean.
So, if you've been wondering why your great looking blog hasn't been getting any comments, there ya go. Do us all a favour, either don't embed the comments in a frame, use a link to the comments instead or ditch the word verification. Us visitors really do want to comment on your cool stuff!
Bloggers rant over, normal service has resumed.
31 comments:
Do you not have a scroll bar on the word verification section? When I can't see the box I just scroll down, unless I'm missing something. However, as you know I have turned mine off so you can have a wondrous look over my blog.
While we're talking about blogs, have a look at this one http://plasticfishonline.blogspot.com/
Found it this morning, the guy has some epic stuff on there, nice conversions, especially on his Chaos renegade army. He's not on FTW so I may give him an email and point him in the right direction, and to your Imperial Guard roll call thingy bobby.. but he does have Word Verification on. :-O
-Draz
I know ofone blog that only lets you post if you are a 'member'.
@Draz - No mate, no scroll bar and you can't even use your tab key to get to the submission button for some reason. Cracking find mate, shame there's no way of letting him know.
@John - I think I know the one you're talking about mate. What's the point in even having a public blog if you're not interested in what nonmembers say. They should just keep it private to club members.
I agree - it's so often more trouble to leave a comment than it could possibly be worth - which is a real shame.
Or maybe I'm too lazy...!
That said, because my laptop doesn't remember who I am sometimes, I now have to make another comment(!) in order to subscribe to anyone else's ranting!
Hey dude, all you have to do is hit tab a bunch of times and it will tab down to the verification box/submit button. I never have problems with blogger comments - it's disqus I hate, always crashes my browser and I had to register because posting as a guest always just blacked out the site.
ps. it just seems like tab doesn't work - give it another try. I thought it didn't work at first too.
You sure its a 'fancy template' and not a newer blogger who hasn't entirely figured his own page out yet? (as in my case where I'm slowly getting the hang of it)
@Drax - life throwing you a curve ball again mate? - lol
@Tristan - tab doesn't work in firefox mate, yes it'll get to the word box but not the submission button. I've tried everything I can think of to post of some blogs and after ten years working on the internet, if I struggle, then I imagine a hell of a lot of others will.
On Disqus, I've never had a problem with it mate, not once. What browser are you using?
@DMC - Definitely not mate, as the problem only occurs with blogs that have replaced the standard blogger templates with graphical ones that embed the comments box within a iframe.
It is actually funny that you posted this Col.
Yesterday, my buddy and I were checking out a few new blogs and I decided to post on them. After a few posts, I realized how annoying it was to have on the word verification. So, I immediately went to my own blog and got rid of it.
Personally, I like it much better when I go to post a comment and the comment box pops up in a seperate window. Personally, I would like it if all blogs used this format.
Had a look through the settings and turned it off, stupid thing is it's turned on as standard..guh!
Its not just the replacement templates that cause the problem. Blogger itself has an issue with the embedded comments that alot of people arent aware of. The easiest fix so far has just been to change your comments to appears as a pop up. Supposedly blogger has been working to fix it but its been months...
Tab stops should work per Tristan's suggestion above. I dont use firefox, but they're a pretty standard convention.
Just checking, but have you tried clicking somewhere in the comment box, and then tabbing around?
its so annoying when it takes such effort to comment
@MG - I haven't got a beef with the word verification as such mate, I post on about 20-40 blogs a days and I don't mind it but when you type something up and you can't even post it - Grrrr! - 'nuff said - now where's me nicotine inhaler!
@TMF - thank you matey!
@DOY - Yeah, I'd be happy with that as a solution as well mate.
@W39 - Tabbing will get me around the edit, my username and the actual word box but not the submit button. The frame doesn't scroll, so even if I can get to the text box, I can't see what I'm entering.
On the clicking inside the box mate, I've done that, hell I've even gone into the source code to try and pull the direct url of the embedded frame so I can open it in a fresh window!
@KSB - It really guts me mate, often it's the blogs with really good stuff on them, combined with the fact that often it's the only way to contact the blog owner, you just know they've got no idea, think that they're just getting no comments and at some point, they'll abandon the blog.
Hence the rant today! Spread the word my blogging brothers, NO MORE EMBEDDED FRAMES, WE WANT POPUPS, WE WANT POPUPS!
I never thought I'd hear myself say that! lol
This is a great tip! I'm going to check my blog next time i'm in front of a comp. I had never considered it might be broken since I never have any trouble.
As someone across the pond (and an adult), I find it amusing whenever I see the words b***** and p****** censored! They're never censored over here. I winder what censored words here are okay over there!
Interesting query:
Over here it's a source of mild amusement to see 'blasphemy' and middle fingers censored on American programmes(NB: 'bloody' is never censored in the UK media, I suspect Corbane was giving a nod to the recent FTW debate on blog expletives).
An intriguing twist is that because US censors tend to be slightly more puritanical, programmes that have been censored stateside sometimes aren't thoroughly checked over here, and as a result words which US censors tend to ignore for being off the radar (such as bu**er and wa**er) slip through. I've caught both of these pre-watershed on US programmes before!
- D.
Don't forget fa**y Drax!, I wet myself the first time I heard kiss my fa**y on a US programme in the middle of the day on UK TV!
I don't know if any of you listen to the radio, but the ones that are on at work and in the control room very often have uncensored language during the day.
Are the censorships on radio stations and tv different, or are these stations just getting away with it?
It's strange, but I've never thought of fa**y, bl**dy and bu**er as censorship words, could just be my generation and the way things are these days.
-Draz
I'm not totally sold on the popups, as long as the embedded frame is properly done. I've seen a number of blogs with the problem you mention. I know of another that I tried commenting on a number of times, but was never able because they'd tweaked and broken the comments window.
It's why I suggest everyone have an e-mail addy also posted, so that someone can contact you directly if there's a problem with your blog.
Also, the censorship debate is amusing. Most of the words you mention wouldn't get censored over here.
PS, I do like the word verification. I turned it on for my blog after I started getting spam posters. I also screen any comments on posts over 2 weeks old. I don't think those are excessive...
Good tip, particularly for those of us who are relative newcomers... well, me anyway.
I've gone and adjusted my blog accordingly.
Cheers.
p.s. thanks for the kind support.
Out of habit these days, whenever I write a comment, I copy it before clicking "Post" or "Submit" because things have gone wrong often enough that I'm always worried about losing the comment and having to retype it. Yes, it's a pain, but I treat it as a necessary evil.
I don't believe I have word verification on now--and while I like anonymous posters to post on my blog, the spammers are beginning to get annoying...
Like I said...things go wrong, like the fact that I just double-posted... sorry.
There are so many blogs with FtW that I want to post to right now however a lot them have an embedded comment box. The problem with that is that I have no where to type my google user name. Hell I cannot even post anonymously for some reason. Right now I cannot change the setting as I'm deployed overseas and the computers are welfare ones; take em or leave em. I wish everyone used a pop up comment box.
Great RANT!!!
I feel your pain, Col.
Well Corbane at your request I've switched off my word verification. It didn't seem to be stopping some random person from spamming me with a bunch of links to chinese porn sites anyway.
Speaking of which, I delete these every time they get posted, but does anyone know how to block a user from commenting? Thus far I haven't found a way, and have to delete the comment every time he makes it. A minor annoyance, but one I'd gladly be rid of.
This exact problem is why I switched to Disqus for the comments on my blog. Yes I know that not everyone has Disqus so it prevents those that don't have any account to post but it is much easier to respond to the comments I do get and start an active conversation that way with my readers.
one last thing to mention - i did notice that it only works the first time you try - so you can't stop tabbing when you get to the word box, you gotta go to the button and then click in the word box.
at least that's how i've gotten it to work.
ps. disqus just doesn't like me (or guest posters??)
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