Showing posts with label kill word verification. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kill word verification. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Where is Ramya?

Ramya over at Ramya's bookshelf has recently disappeared. What!?!
NOTE: if you don't want to read all of the process, and are only interested in the conclusion, scroll down to the conclusion at the bottom of the post.
Yeah, nothing serious though...but you will get this message if you go to her blog:

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at ramyasbookshelf.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.


I emailed Ramya after several people contacted me about her blog being gone when they went to check it and this is what she said:

hey bethany!
well, blogger classified my blog as "spam blog" and has blocked it temporarily.. they just wanted a confirmation from me to make sure it is not spam.. i have no idea why they did that!
it should be back in action either today or by tomorrow..will keep you updated!:)
Ramya.

So I went to find out about these spam blogs, and blogger has an algorithm it uses to see if someone's blog is a spam blog. Here is what blogger had to say for itself anyway:

Why is my blog disabled?

If your blog is disabled, it will be listed on your Dashboard, but you will not be able to click on it to access it. If this is the case, there will be a grace period during which you can request that it be reviewed and recovered. The disabling is a result of our automated classification system marking it as spam. Because this system is automated there will necessarily be some false positives, though we're continually working on improving our algorithms to avoid these. If your blog is not a spam blog, then it was one of the false positives, and we apologize.

What are spam blogs?

As with many powerful tools, blogging services can be both used and abused. The ease of creating and updating webpages with Blogger has made it particularly prone to a form of behavior known as link spamming. Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.

Spam blogs cause various problems, beyond simply wasting a few seconds of your time when you happen to come across one. They can clog up search engines, making it difficult to find real content on the subjects that interest you. They may scrape content from other sites on the web, using other people's writing to make it look as though they have useful information of their own. And if an automated system is creating spam posts at an extremely high rate, it can impact the speed and quality of the service for other, legitimate users.

http://brettduncan.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/spam-c07.jpg

Conclusion of all that jibber-jabber:
Why am I posting this super-long thing about this. Well, because I was contacted several times with "what happened to Ramya?", and then I got worried it was because she got rid of comment verification (my fault). I was worried that my movement (haha!) "Kill Word Verification" was hurting my fellow bloggers. But now I see that that had nothing to do with it, and I feel a tad bit better (since she will be back today or tomorrow). I am therefore sad that Ramya's blog was classified a spam blog, but relieved to see that it was not due to her getting spam comments from disabling word verification (what I originally thought) but it meant that they were curious about her links. So it still stands, just do it:



Thursday, October 2, 2008

THANK YOU all for: KILLING YOUR WORD VERIFICATION!!!! :)

How is it working out for you?? I am curious about those who have turned off their word verification recently. Have you been spammed? I still get virtually no spam at all...but maybe it is different for you. I am interested in knowing.

Thanks so much to all of you who have joined in on this, posted it on your blog sidebars, and some have gone even as far as to post it at the end of each of their posts!!!!! WAY COOL!!! So many of you have joined, and have been just as excited about this movement as me. Thanks for making it a movement, I hoped it would grow, but I can't make a movement alone...it would just be a rant without you!!! THANK YOU!!!

How is the trip?

If you have no idea what this is all about, go to my original post on: Kill Word Verification!!!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Sunday Salon- reviews, and kill word verification!

This week has been filled with reading and blogging, and altering my blog look, but mostly the last one :) I have read some and here are the reviews from this week:
Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
Front Porch Prophet by Raymond L. Atkins
What if...? by Steve N. Lee

Oh, and an author interview with Kathryn Maughan, the author of Did I Expect Angels?

One more thing that I just posted: kill word verification
The post is mostly for fun, but I am serious about getting rid of word verification, please, please consider it!?



I'll be back to check in later today.

Saturday, September 27, 2008

kill word verification: rid the world of useless typing


I have created a button, that hopefully becomes a movement. A movement for what? Well I am going to call it "Kill Word Verification: rid the world of useless typing". Below I have an explanation of what I am talking about, but just in case you don't know what word verification is it is those jabber words that you have to fill out (as a security measure) on blogs. Words like this: jimmex, meiwnl, jkehgd, wrttyl, leosbte, wligvfd, tehdjkgne,meihuguen, piihdkks, eisgeki....AHHHHHHHHH!

Should I really use the word hate to describe my feelings about word verification on blog comments? YES! no doubt at all. Word verification is not fun, it is not useful, and it decreases the amount of comments you receive on your blog!!

I have disabled the word verification on my blog, and have had it that way since I started my book blog in march, and on my personal blog I have had it that way for over two years. You know how many times I have gotten spam comments?? less than 10 (and that is for both blogs).

How to rid yourself of word verification?? There are two ways :)

First: get rid of word verification on your own blog, here is how:
1. click dashboard at the top right corner (in between your email address and the sign out links)
2.click on the "settings" link on your desired blog
3. This will take you to the basic settings tab, click on the "comments"tab (upper left)
4.)scroll down to the bottom of the page, it is a few questions from bottom and it says :
Show word verification for comments? click: NO
5.) Click on the "save settings" button at the bottom of the page to confirm and you are SET!


Second: let your readers know that they have the power to change their blogs as well:
Do you want to kill word verification too??? add this button to your blog, write a post for your readers....let's spread the news....we no longer have to submit to the powers that engulf us in useless typing!!!!!

You know what they say, "hate the sin, not the sinner!" hahahaha....seriously now though...consider helping all your commenters out and kill the word verification!!!!

take the button :

Be sure to leave me a comment if you agree, or disagree....no hate mail though :)