Blog Suggestions

1. Turn Off Word Verification
2. Translation

1.  Let's talk about Word Verification

As a basic courtesy to your readers, please turn off Word Verification.  Don't make your blog friends do the "dirty work" to keep your blog spam free when you can easily to it yourself.

Many bloggers are afraid that they will get spam if they disable Word Verification.  But if you use Blogger, there is a super easy way to turn Word verification off AND keep spammers off your blog.  All it takes is a couple of adjustments to your comment settings.

(FYI  New Bloggers-  Word Verification is now a default setting on new Blogger blogs.    So unless you have personally gone in and changed your settings,  you have Word Verification and probably don't even realize it.  Word Verification makes it difficult for people to comment on your posts, so please turn it off.)
  

Its very easy to fix.  Here is what you need to do to change it:

  Open up your Blog.
  Look at the menu across the top of the page.
  Click on "Design"

  The click on "Settings"

  Then click on  "Posts and Comments"

  And then make these 3 changes:

  1. "Who can comment" -    Choose "Registered users only"   Most spammers want to     
  leave anonymous comments, so making this change this will lessen the possibility that you 
  will receive unwanted comments and perhaps eliminate them completely.  (If you decide 
  that you still want anyone and everyone to be able to comment, at least complete steps 2 
  and 3.) 

  2. "Comment Moderation"-   Choose  "Always"  OR  "Sometimes".   I have mine set at 
  Sometimes - for posts older than 1 day. But you can choose how much you would like to 
  moderate based on how often you want to check your older posts.   Some people prefer to 
  moderate ALL of it.   If any remaining spam does get through, you will be able to quickly and 
  quietly delete it before it gets published for anyone else to see,  because each comment will 
  have to be approved by you first.   But you probably won't get any spam, because of what 
  you did in step #1. 

  3. "Word Verification" -  "NO"  This will  keep your regular readers and friends happy 
  because they won't have to decipher those impossible to read letters and numbers before 
  leaving a comment.  (This is the most important step!)

Can you read all of these letters and numbers?   No?  I can't either. 
Is that an "r" or a "p" or an "n"?  What about that thing that looks like a loop-de-loop?  Is it a "c" or an "e"?  

  How abut this one, then.  What the heck comes after music?    on??alb ???
  It's just crazy!

  I get so frustrated when I want to leave a comment for someone, but can't read the silly 
  verification to type it.   I lead a very busy life and I know you do too.   We all have limited      
  time to spend on the computer and no one wants to waste it on goofy stuff like this.  

  Please, please, please turn Word Verification off!    Lets keep the blogs a pleasant 
 place for all of us.  Thank you!! 

Design

Settings

Posts and Comments

Comment Location ?
Who can comment?	Anyone - includes Anonymous Users   Registered User - includes OpenID   User with Google Accounts   Only members of this blog
Comment Moderation ?	Always      Sometimes  For posts older than  days  Never  Email moderation requests to
Show word verification ?     NO!!
Show Backlinks ?

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2.  Let's talk about blogs in other languages

Have you ever run into a blog that you love, but can't read a word because it's in Swedish or Polish, or some other language you never had an opportunity to learn?  If only the blog owner had included a translate button.

You can't change someone else's blog, but you can make sure that your own blog is easy to read for your friends around the world.   It's so easy to add a translate button to your sidebar, which will keep your readers from feeling that frustration if they can't read English.  The button will allow your blog to be translated into several languages.  (You choose which ones.)  Blogger has a translation button in layout- gadgets. Google has one, too.   Sometimes the direct translation will seem a little odd, because of the differences in sentence structure from one language to another, but it's good enough to understand what the writer is trying to say.  I hope you will consider adding one to your blog so your friends around the globe can read your blog.

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