Why I Won’t Comment on Blogs With Captcha

I'm not commenting if you use CAPTCHA

Here’s a step-by-step run down of what happens to me when I read some posts on the Blogger platform:

What an awesome post!

THIS POST ROCKS!!! You’ve done a great job of pulling me in and I just devoured your post. I have thoughts and opinions about what you said and I can’t wait to share them with you!

Girl gotta comment

Girl typing on a keyboard

Typing, typing typing…

Gotta get all the thoughts out!

Damn, this comment is the BEST!

SUBMIT!

Female hand on Apple mouse

I’VE DONE IT!!! I can’t wait to rock the blogger’s world with my magical words.

While the page loads…

Let’s just hop over to this other tab and check out Twitter.

Twitter feed

20 minutes later…

What? What’s that blog tab still doing open? I commented on that aaaaaages ago. Let’s just close that.

A mouse cursor closing a browser window
Note: The Mile Long Bookshelf blog doesn’t actually use CAPTCHA.

BUT WHAT I DIDN’T REALIZE!

CATPCHA on Blogger

The comment never went through because there was a CAPTCHA form.. BUT I ALREADY CLOSED THE WINDOW!!

Sometimes I even click into the tab and then immediately click “x”. So I see the CAPTCHA form just as the page is closing. At that point, it’s done. Over. THE COMMENT IS GONE!!!!!!

Does anyone else do this?

Obviously CAPTCHA sucks and no one likes it. However, my main problem is that I end up closing the window accidentally before I even get to the CAPTCHA bit! How about you?

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43 comments

  1. Whenever I comment on a blog and find out it has captcha enabled, I immediately think, “Oh, what an amateur.” There are so many great plugins for blocking spam, if a newbie would just be bothered to google them. It’s especially embarrassing when a blogger has been around for a while and hasn’t figured out an alternative to annoying their readers.

    Abria @ Bee Splendid recently posted: Violence Against Women is Not a Plot Device
    1. I don’t think Blogger has as many options as WordPress does, but it is still very annoying. I think the comments on this topic alone show just how many people refuse to comment on a blog with CAPTCHA enabled.

  2. I don’t comment too much – I confess I’m lazy, always in a hurry, popping from one tab to another, doing many things at the same time. If people turns the whole thing more difficult, I don’t mind, just forget about it.
    One thing that drives me nuts, besides captcha, is having to be logged to comment (google account, wordpress…). I use several accounts, sometimes I’m logged with my work’s account, or hubby’s one (he asks me to update something on his website, or google drive), so I won’t take the time to log in my own personal account just to comment. No comments then. I won’t bother.

    1. I don’t mind having to use my Google account since I’m always signed into it anyway, but I know many other people who hate it just like you, so you’re not alone!

  3. I hate captcha and it’s hard for me to want to comment on someone who has it..and I have thought I commented and then clicked the x before realizing it was captcha and I thought oh well, not doing it again and just let it go..though that really bothers me when I worked really hard making a kickin’ comment and it doesn’t go through because of that little bugger! 🙁

  4. I’ve done that a time or two. But what really irks me is the blogs that make you be signed in to leave comments. I don’t have half the sign-in options they usually allow, and of the ones I do, none are associated with my blog. So if I start to comment and see the forced sign in options, you’ve pretty just lost out on a comment from me.

    I -could- sign in with WordPress, but the link goes back to my old blog from before I went self-hosted. So it’s pretty much a waste of time both for me and for anyone who chose to click on my ‘signed in’ name.

    1. I always hated the Jetpack commenting system for this reason. I’m not sure if it still does this, but here’s the problem I experienced:

      I would use the Name+Email option, but the email I enter is the same as my WordPress.com email. So Jetpack recognizes that and then asks/forces me to login with that account even though I don’t want to!

    1. Adding CAPTCHA to comments wouldn’t prevent any hacking attempts.

      You should read the comments on this posts. It’s pretty eye opening how many commenters you’re missing out on because there are loads of people who won’t comment if CAPTCHA is enabled.

  5. YES! Oh my goodness, I was sure I was the only one who did this, and it was just because I am terribly distracted, but I confess, I am glad to not be alone. I always wonder why some random blog is open, and 9 times out of 10, it is because I never did the captcha, and it is 10 days later and beyond irrelevant. And then, if you catch the captcha, but can’t tell if that weird sideways character is a 1, or an i, or an l, and of course you guess wrong… basically what I am saying is that I hate captcha.

    Shannon @ It Starts At Midnight recently posted: Top Ten Books On My Winter TBR
  6. Commenting on Blogger hosted sites is the worst for me! They hate me so much. I’m generally okay with the whole Captcha issue–yeah it’s annoying–but my big issue is that half the time I click to preview my comment and the whole thing just disappears and I’m left wondering ‘Well crap did that go through? Should I post again just in case? No because then if there’s two comments, I’ll look like an idiot.’ So sometimes I leave a Blogger site thinking I commented but because of this issue, sometimes I didn’t actually comment which sucks.

  7. I’ve definitely had that happen to me before. But the biggest problem I have with blogger blogs is that a lot of them don’t have a way for me to comment. They don’t have the Name/URL option so I can’t comment. I HATE that because I will have read the whole post and really wanted to comment but I have no way of doing that. That’s what frustrates me more than CAPTCHA. Unless there is away to comment I don’t know how, which could totally be the case.

    Quinn @ Quinn's Book Nook recently posted: GIF TAG – REVIEWING BOOKS IN ONE GIF
  8. I have trouble with Captcha: I simply can’t decipher them. Yes, I’m one of these people who click the “refresh” button till I can make out the text/number picture.
    So to me, it’s rather a (huge) inconvenience and considering Askimet is doing a great job, I don’t really understand why a WP website would use Captcha. As for non-WP website, they could use other anti-spam system or, if they can’t, a commenting systems like Disqus that filter spam for them.
    I don’t actually think we still have a need for Captcha.

    Angélique recently posted: Review: The Leopard by K.V. Johansen
  9. The moment I see CAPTCHA, I close the tab and move on. So many times have I tried deciphering them only to be denied my comment submission because I kept typing wrong answers. I rather not waste my time typing a comment which I might not even be able to submit in the end. It’s too frustrating.

    Joséphine @ Word Revel recently posted: Book Cover Culture #7: Cinder
  10. Yes! I’ve totally done this! Even worse is when I comment and I enter what I thought I saw and then it comes back and tells me it’s wrong. I’ve gotten so frustrated that I don’t even hardly comment on blogs with CAPTCHA anymore.

  11. I won’t comment at all. I’ve actually stopped following blogs who used it before. There was one blog, I can’t even remember what it was, but I always wanted to comment because it was fabulous. They wouldn’t ditch the captcha though and I just won’t bother with it. I have better things to do with my time than try to figure out what the captcha says to copy it and so I stopped following them because I knew it would save my time since I wouldn’t desire to comment just to be stopped by the captcha police.

  12. I absolutely detest CAPTCHA!
    I can’t see the verify you’re not a robot field when I’m using Chrome, my default and favourite browser window.
    So for blogger blogs, I have to open Internet Explorer, which is so so slow, copy the blog address and copy my comment over. Such a pain!
    And what’s even worse is that there are so many blogs with CAPTCHA!

  13. I HATE captchas, especially those which are hard to solve on a mobile phone. Whoever invented and uses captchas should burn in hell.

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