My Tiny Little Minor Unimportant Manifesto

I’ve been a bad blog commenter lately.  I like to read but, like many people these days, mostly do it on my phone and I’m not very adept at thumb typing.  So, I don’t comment.  Usually.  Today, I clicked on a few blogs off my sidebar that moved me to comment and almost all of them had word verification as the second step.

Oh my goodness, do I ever wish those would go away.

For one thing, they are hard to read.  I feel like I am taking a quiz at the end of my comment.  I sit there, squinting at the computer monitor wondering if that is a sideways “g" or freaking looking “j” and rather than feeling like I’m sending the love, I feel like I’m flashing my friend badge, verifying that I’m part of whatever club you have.  Am I the only one that gets my words rejected sometimes?  When it is rejected,  most of the time, it’s not from typing too fast.  I just can’t figure out what in the heck that word is. It’s crooked and fuzzy and probably how people who take hallucinogens see things.

And now, they want two words!  Two!  As if one asinine word wasn’t enough.

For real,  it shouldn’t be that hard.  I get that they are testing for humans at the keyboard and not the all-seeing HAL, but I feel like I need to use the force to type it in correctly, because trying to read it using my english language brain doesn’t always work.  Are there rampant spam comments going around?  I wonder because I’ve been blogging for awhile and I’ve never gotten one.  I’d probably be singing a different tune if I were or ever had been bombarded by unwanted comments, but not only has it never happened to me, I’ve never heard of it happening to anyone.  I’m sure by simply typing that sentence, I’m due for some doozies, but why do so many people choose this option? To keep away the illiterate?  Do you want to stifle comments?  Do you hate people?

Kidding.  Everyone loves comments.  Don’t they?  I assume that bloggers by the very nature of having a blog are looking for some kind of validation.  I mean, of course we do it for the record.  I, of course, blog for the record!  But, comments are nice.  Why make it harder to leave them?

So, here is my manifesto:  Down with the word verification!  Don’t let the robots win!

O.K.  Manifesto over.  I’ll still try to leave you a comment.  If I can.