Well there is some WONDERFUL blog candy up for grabs on Christine's blog : http://craftlingscosycorner.blogspot.com/
She also has there her thought-provoking arguments on word verification on blogs:
"ARGUMENTS AGAINST WORD VERIFICATION
Everyone will have their own view, but in my case, I regard the removal of word verification as a basic courtesy to my visitors who are kind enough to take the time to leave comments. Being aware of their comments through comment moderation, but not hindering them with word verification is the very least I can do to reciprocate their courtesy to me.
The problem with word verification is that it takes too long. The characters are very often hard to decipher, and it’s frustrating when you get them wrong and have to re-enter the little suckers!
So this campaign is on behalf of busy bloggers. Please spare a thought for the poor bloggers who work so hard at getting round as many blogs as possible to leave sprinkles of blessing and good vibes wherever they go. The terrible proliferation of this awful plague of word verification is a blight on their efforts to make the Land of Blog a cheerier place.
I think most people just have word verification switched on by default, not realising how easy it is to switch it off, and perhaps not realising how annoying it is for other bloggers. Either that, or they’re under the misapprehension that they will be bombarded with spam messages. This is not the case. I’ve had mine switched off now for three of the four months that I’ve been blogging, and have had two spam comments. The responses I’ve had from other bloggers to my earlier posts on this topic back this up. (You can see the comments in response to my previous post on this subject, HERE.)
For safety’s sake, have comment moderation on for sure, but please consider canceling word verification on your blog. Maybe for a trial period, and see how you get on.
Unless there are thousands of comments being left, comment moderation shouldn’t be too much of an issue for the blog owner, and other bloggers will also be more inclined to leave comments if they can see that you don’t use word verification.
However, each to their own, and if you disagree with me, that’s cool. We can agree to differ and not visit each other’s blogs! lol ;o)
OK.. rant over. If you have read all the way to the end, thank you for putting up with it, and ~ obviously ~ do what you wish on your blogs, but I had to say something. I love to get around and leave comments, but word verification spoils the experience.
Of course, when I get my new job, all this will be academic to me, as I will then have a life, and I won't have time for much blog-hopping!! Not that blog-hoppers need to get a life.. Errr... think I'll stop digging now, before I get into REAL trouble!! lol ;o)"
I have to say I'd never really considered the whole word verification issue before but I can see Christine's point and so I've turned mine off. Hope this is appreciated by all my blog visitors ;-)
