Chris Brogan is someone I've enjoyed reading for quite some time now. And while lately he's been knee-deep in the 'new media' space, every now and then he gives some sound solid advice for those of us who are doing these things solely for enjoyment and nothing else.
With my recent experimentation with screencasting, inkscape, linux, twitter and other things tech, I have not spent a lot of time improving my blog (or my blogging). Chris wrote a recent post on making your blog more friendly. One of his first points was about making commenting easier, citing the fact that captchas are a hurdle that should be avoided if at all possible. He also wrote that some blogging software (like blogger.com) makes it mandatory.
Hmm. I know I had captchas enabled, but never really checked if that was mandatory. Lo and behold, it isn't. A quick switch of a radio button in the commenting settings will turn it off.
I put a high value on the few comments I do get because of the opinions, ideas and discussion that can show up there. Therefore, I've turned captchas off and for that matter I've also turned off comment moderation just to see if anything changes. I'll still get email notification of comments and can go in and delete comments if they are in fact spam.
So for now I've freed up the commenting system - no moderation, no captchas. Now on to much tougher things like improving the writing and posting frequency...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Thanks. I've always found Blogger's commenting system with its captchas hard to deal with. Good luck with the spam.
I also need to spend time upgrading my blog and my blogging skills.
Richard, the comment system is still moderated. My post didn't automatically post. It is waiting for your moderation. I don't think that was your intention.
Hi Richard- I'm not sure my last post went through. If it did, sorry for double-posting. I love your site, love the graphics, love that you've got lots of great stuff to say (I read back a few posts).
I love your logo. Did you design it?
Once I stop talking about that pesky new media, I'm glad the rest of the stuff makes a difference.
Sorry Will - you were correct. In my haste posting from work this morning I forgot to hit 'save settings' after disabling moderation. You should find it works correctly now. - Thanks for the heads up.
Hi Chris,
Glad you like the blog. Yeah I designed the header image a while back. I've been fiddling for quite a while with Inkscape and have done several Inkscape screencasts on YouTube and have entered a few logo design competitions too (check out openfontlibrary.org - that one's mine :D ).
I like my current blog header but I'm always one to tinker. We'll see how long it lasts. ;)
I like the new media stuff, but I just can't keep up sometimes. I'm a faithful reader of your blog(s), so keep up the good work and thanks for the comment.
Post a Comment