When we originally set up this blog, we had all comments go into the moderation queue so that we could catch spam or inappropriate comments. After a few weeks, we started getting dozens of spam comments a day, so Collin installed the reCAPTCHA plugin. We both liked the idea of helping to digitize books and get rid of our spam at the same time. However, the spam comments kept appearing in our moderation queue so ever few months one of us would have to go clear out hundreds of spam comments (it even broke a thousand at least once). That was annoying but not bad enough that either of us cared enough to figure it out.
The other day, I finally got tired of the spam and read some of the reCAPTCHA support forum posts and think we got the problem figured out. It sounds like reCAPTCHA allows comments to go through that fail the CAPTCHA but it will mark the comment as spam automatically. I guess WordPress was putting the comments into the moderation queue before reCAPTCHA could mark them as spam though. Anyway, I hope I really got it right and we won’t all of a sudden get flooded with spam comments. So far so good…
indeed a nice idea this recaptcha. btw, nice game you’re working on ! looking forward for more screens
There’s an interesting alternative for captcha’s that I read about a while ago. By adding some additional fields, hiding them from human eyes and checking if they’re empty, you can essentially check if a post was written by a bot, rather than checking if it was written by a human. Less hassle for posters and from what I’ve read, pretty effective.
Not that I’m using it myself, as Akismet does a good job weeding out the spam for me, but it’s something to consider if you want to give commenters an easier time.