The Comments Conundrum
A little while ago I introduced a field on my weblog’s comments form asking users to simply enter my first name. I did this, following Andrew Wooster’s suggestion, as a simple but amazingly effective anti-spam measure. Unfortunately, I think it’s been a little too effective: since I introduced it I’ve gotten noticeably fewer comments, as well as some confused emails. With this in mind, I just wanted to take a moment to clarify that this field is not meant to be some sort of riddle or exclusivity test: when it asks “What is Buzz’s first name?” it’s looking for “Buzz.”
Since this does seem to be a consistent source of confusion, however (and I can see how it would be, since “Buzz” is actually a nickname), I’m definitely going to change the wording to something clearer. Apologies for the ambiguity.
April 3rd, 2006 at 11:26 am
With this in mind, I just wanted to take a moment to clarify that this field is not meant to be some sort of riddle or exclusivity test: when it asks “What is Buzz’s first name?” it’s looking for “Buzz.”
So since you put it in the quotes: is that with a period or without?
April 3rd, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I guess it does kind of look like a “close friends and family only” sort of thing, though I’ve never thought so until I read this post. Serves you right for having such a nickname. :p On other blogs I’ve seen wording such as “Enter the word ‘matt’ here”, or whatever.
For the record, my Address Book naturally continues to list you as Mary-Louise “Buzz” Andersen.
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:02 pm
I figured out the answer to the question!
What do I win?
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Not that it would have kept me from trying but that was exactly the question I asked myself when I saw the question.
Unless your surname is Lightyear, Buzz just won’t sound like a natural first name…
April 3rd, 2006 at 1:51 pm
Have a look at the elaboration of this “skill-testing-question” approach used by Rob Griffiths in his blog: http://www.robservatory.com/
Note the inline explanations.
April 3rd, 2006 at 2:35 pm
I introduced the same thing on my blog (”What color is an orange?”). Yes, I’m also getting fewer comments. But, do you *really* want comments from those that can’t answer such a question?
April 3rd, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Over on Movable Type, there is a plugin called MT-Keystrokes. All it does is set a flag in the comment form if an actual keypress is detected in the comment box, using a JavaScript event handler.
I was skeptical — I mean, it’s absolutely trivial to work around. But I’ve had only maybe… 2? 3? spam comments since installing it. It’s the single most effective thing I’ve ever done to stop comment spam. I kind of can’t believe it.
April 4th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Try out Akismet, it’s bundled with WP 2.0+. (You should really upgrade, too! Ping me if you need help.)
April 5th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Funny, I assumed it was some kind of test that I wouldn’t be able to pass.
I think you could make it as simple as “Type Buzz in the box”, to get past the automated comment spammers.
April 6th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
The question should be: What is the square root of 16?
That way, it would not only weed out ‘bots, but also stupid people!