Apologies to my non-Blogger readers. Apparently, Google does not want to play well with others anymore.
I’m not sure if this is enough reason for me to leave Blogger altogether — I’m running more than a couple of weblogs off it at the moment — but I am looking into alternatives. Certainly Haloscan is starting to look a lot more appealing. In the meantime, I do hope you’ll consider still commenting, at least to some extent.
The thing I don’t get is: who benefits from this? Does Google really think this will encourage more people to sign up for Blogger accounts, or that their users want to exclude comments from people who don’t?
I have a lot of problems with some blogs that use Haloscan. It doesn’t always open on my computer, so I rarely comment on blogs with Haloscan. I’ve never much cared about leaving my URL when I post, tho non-Blogger blogs do this. All I care about is leaving my comment and being able to follow it. I love Blogger’s new email updates for comments you leave, much better than Haloscan. Blogger’s email includes the comment. Haloscan’s email tells me I have to go to the blog to read the comment. Blogger is now also (in draft form, but should move it over soon) offering Open ID commenting for blogs that don’t want to allow anonymous commenting.
If you want Blogger to allow the URL field again (which I’ve never noticed), then just suggest it. I know there’s a link for that somewhere, as I’ve used it in the past.
Kind of silly for Google to do that.
It may seem like no big deal, but getting that comment link to other blogs is a great way to find new bloggers. That comment link is also a great way to get people to visit your own. (as long as you’re not “comment-whoring”)
I comment on blogger blogs using my Google profile, but just to be a rebel I’m putting a shameless link here anyway.
Wormbrain’s non-blogger blog
The backlinks on URLs are what tie the community together; I’m always disappointed when someone leaves a comment on my site but doesn’t have a URL to share. (In fact, they’re much more likely to be moderated away than a stranger with a URL.)
I also hate captchas with a passion have been irritated for some time that blogger blogs don’t try to recognize me (I had to change radio buttons, etc every time I left a comment). They’ve definately been trying to create a miserable user-experience for people not using an account on their system.
The technical migration between Blogger and WordPress is not difficult, but the permalinks can be difficult to maintain. So I understand some reluctance in changing platforms.
Shelly:
Regardless of whether or not it’s a feature that every commentator wants, it makes no sense to do away with the option altogether, unless it truly is out of spite for non-Blogger users. As a blog owner, I want people to have the option — if only because, as it’s been pointed out by wormbrain and thud, anonymous comments tend to diminish, rather than add to, the community. I happen to know who both of them are without the backlinks, but what if I didn’t?
Requiring backlinks or e-mail addresses makes some sense. Ensuring anonymous comments doesn’t.
Haloscan isn’t perfect, certainly — I agree with you on the e-mail follow-ups — but it’s looking like a better alternative right now.
Thud:
You could, at least when I first set up Blogger comments, not require captchas verification. Inevitably, however, this led to a lot of comment spam that I really wasn’t interested in policing. I don’t think it’s asking a lot for a commenter to type in a few extra letters to prove they’re not a spambot. That said, the fact that Blogger refreshes that word as you’re typing, so that by the time you’re done with your comment, the word is no longer valid — well, yes, that’s extremely annoying and, I think, pointless. I don’t see it on my own blogs, since I’m logged in, but it’s definitely been a source of annoyance on other Blogger-based blogs.
I haven’t really investigated WordPress, much less migrating my existing blogs over to it. That, more than general reluctance, is what’s keeping me from doing it.
As I said, if you want the feature, let Blogger know. They’ve added in many of the features we bloggers have suggested. They do have a suggestion form in their Help/Blogger Knowledge area.
As usual, hit send too soon.
I’ve never had Blogger refresh the comment page while I’m typing. I get a new captcha word only after I’ve mistyped the one that’s there. How odd. For ex, I’ve been typing and revising this comment for at least 2 minutes now, and the page/captcha hasn’t refreshed.
I have a WordPress.com blog and it’s okay. I really don’t use it. To change the fonts (so I can read my own blog), I had to pay. You can’t get into the css otherwise. WordPress.com doesn’t allow much in sidebar widgets. Like LiveJournal, it doesn’t accept javascript, for instance.
The only version of WordPress that would a step up is the full program that requires you get a host. As I don’t want to pay for that (I already pay for enough online services), I stick with free sites like WordPress.com (tho I don’t really use that blog) and Blogger. For a free service that doesn’t have ads unless you opt into AdSense, it is the best I’ve tried.
I use the captcha due to spam, too, tho with moderation on, I might try taking it off and seeing how much spam I get this time.
Shelly:
The feature was there until very recently. As Thud pointed out on his own (non-linked) blog, this isn’t something Google hasn’t gotten around to fixing yet; it’s something they only recently broke.
Blogger’s “suggestion form” isn’t easy to find or particularly useful. It lets you “vote” for a list of suggested features, not, y’know, actually suggest any of your own. Unless I’m missing something, or there’s another link you’re referring to.
I think I was unclear. The catchpa doesn’t refresh as I’m typing — that is to say, not directly before my eyes. But if I’m drafting a post for more than a minute of two, when I try to post it, I’ll be told that the word verification was wrong, and a new word will appear. Every time.
As I said in my original post, I don’t know that this is reason enough for me to leave Blogger, which by and large I genuinely like. Certainly, for the time being, it makes sense to keep my blogspot blogs with them. But this one, which I do pay to host…I don’t know. I’m thinking about it.
I’m definitely thinking about, for this and a few other reasons, going with a better commenting system.
I use Haloscan because I prefer it to the Blogger commenting features. The email notifications I get enclose most of the comment and a link to the specific comment.
I hate captchas. I hate Google’s captcha because they’re often so hard to read. I’d rather take a chance that the Haloscan won’t always show up for a reader than to switch over to the Blogger comments.
I guess I just don’t get the captchas-hate so much. I understand they’re an inconvenience, sure, but I do feel they’re a necessary one. I’ve used other comment systems, and Blogger’s without the verification, and I was constantly having to go in and delete spam. Now, not so much. And believe me, I’ve seen significantly worse and more illegible captchas than what Blogger offers.
WordPress uses a plugin called Akismet, which filters your own comments based on comments in its database that others have already flagged as spam. I have no captcha, so I went for months of deleting spamming comments before I turned Akismet on. Now, I get maybe one spam comment a week that gets through.
I’ve never used anything other than WordPress, so I can’t compare it to other software. But it makes me happy.
* I also get the bug where you must enter the captcha again if you take too long, every time.
Testing (again)