Captcha Pain

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I understand that spam is a continuing source of problems for websites, and I applaude your efforts to keep it in check, but this new method is really a pain. I' ve posted two comments and had to fill-in a Capcha box both times. Doesn't this thing have some kind of a prescreening setting, where at least preexisting users get a pass?

I read and post via my mobile, which is always a single errant keystroke from erasing all my laborous typing via this dinky keypad. To get safely to the end of the comment only to find I have another hurdle to jump, with the attendant risk of losing what I've written, kinda puts the brakes on my efforts.

If I'm going to have to do a capcha box everytime I decide to comment, it's going to affect how much I even bother to comment. I'm likely to be in the minority here, using my mobile to read and comment, but I doubt I'm the only one. Please, something needs to be adjusted, or something.

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Captcha

erin's picture

The comment engine thinks you are commenting from a domain that has been used to send out spam. Hence it asking you to fill out a Captcha. It's supposed to learn as it goes. Perhaps in a few more submissions it will realize you are not a spammer and stop asking you. That's the way it's supposed to work.

I turned on this anti-spam software in order to let non-logged-in users comment. We've been getting about 5 non-member comments a day since then and the spam filter is catching 70 to 80 pieces of spam, per day.

Anyone else having trouble with the spam filter? We can always go back to only allowing non-members to comment if they log in as Guest Reader.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

Often,

Angharad's picture

despite being 'remembered' I have to log in again. I simply assumed your site was showing some taste in trying to keep us riff-raff out. I suppose because I use two different computers from home, this could be part of the problem. Worse things happen on a bicycle, but you did ask.

Angharad

Angharad

Different computers

erin's picture

The way it remembers you is it gives your computer a cookie and keeps a record of that called a session. So, if you don't accept cookies, asking to be remembered doesn't work. In fact, if you log-in then walk away from the computer long enough for your session to expire (I think it's set at 20 minutes right now), you will have to log back in if you don't have a cookie.

When the session expires or you close your browser, the session is erased. When you open a new session, it looks for a cookie. If you have one, it creates a new session based on the cookie, as long as things in the cookie match. If you log in from a different computer before the session on your first computer expires, and before you close the browser on your first computer, it creates another new session and gives your second computer a cookie.

Now with two sessions open at once, the cookie of one of them can be marked as invalid in some situations for security reasons. Coming back to the site from that computer later can force a new log-in.

Plus, when it detects an anomaly in something, like your ISP gave you a dynamic IP and changed it between logins, as a security precaution, it will expire sessions and cookies and re-issue them. You may have to log in the next time you come to the site if it does this. There are other situations in which the security will expire sessions and cookies.

Additionally, there are certain things you can do if you are an editor, moderator or admin that will cause it to ask for you to log-in again. Well, it doesn't ask, it just won't let you do those things if you don't. :)

Also, cookies expire after 7 days anyway.

Clear as mud, right? I don't understand all of it, either. :)

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.