Referring to InstantSpot? Yeah, I find that really annoying...

Posted by Sean Corfield on Dec 22, 2007 at 05:17 PM UTC - 5 hrs

No one in particular.. I've just been seeing a lot of places where I want to leave a comment lately, but where I've got to sign up for an account to do so.

Needless to say, I don't bother. =)

I understand the reasoning behind it in some places (as far as spam goes - hopefully not just to increase the users count), but really I think if spam is that bad, a combination of filtering and moderation can work much better than requiring membership to the site in question.

Maybe we need a universal ID or something, where blogs can subscribe and check validity of users. Even that would be annoying on first sign up, but at least if everyone used it we'd only have to sign in and up once.

Posted by Sammy Larbi on Dec 24, 2007 at 02:34 PM UTC - 5 hrs

You mean like OpenID ? I see quite a few blogs that accept that.

Posted by Sean Corfield on Dec 24, 2007 at 03:39 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Yeah, that's what I had in mind but I couldn't think of the name. Thanks =)

Posted by Sammy Larbi on Dec 24, 2007 at 04:43 PM UTC - 5 hrs

One downside to having a central account like I've seen used on some blogs, is that I could ask you to sign into your GMail account and grab your user name and password.

Am I being paranoid?

Posted by Adrian Lynch on Dec 25, 2007 at 12:51 PM UTC - 5 hrs

@Adrian, that's not how Open ID works - you should check it out.

Posted by Sean Corfield on Dec 25, 2007 at 03:53 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Plus, you could already ask me for my gmail account info.

I guess if it did work like that, you'd need to be a bit more skeptical though.

Posted by Sammy Larbi on Dec 27, 2007 at 10:21 AM UTC - 5 hrs

Just came across this and had to make a rebuttal to the vicious attack by Sean. ;)

Actually we have never required anyone to create an account, but we have always required an email confirmation click by non-members. When you do that it sends you to a page that says that your comment has been activated, and if you create an account using the form in front of you, you will not have to confirm your email in the future.

That said... we have *often* heard from people that didn't read the message that they thought we were requiring them to sign up, which we never were. It obviously says that we were not communicating the idea like we should have been. Given the obvious confusion, we aren't happy with the way it works either, and it is a tiny fraction of the what has been rewritten in the new version which is currently under beta testing. (In fact, not one line of code has carried over to the new version!) In the soon-to-be-released version, non-members will still have to click an activation link on comments, but the confusion will be gone about people thinking they have to sign up.

As for our motives of requiring a click to validate a comment, by the time we hit about 1000 sites, the amount of spam in the database was getting ridiculous. We have taken steps to prevent that using CFFP, but we had a lot of human submitting going on that has been very difficult to get a handle on. The requiring email validation has been the most effective solution to that problem for us to date.

Hopefully that clears it up a bit at least where InstantSpot is concerned.

~Dave

Posted by Dave Shuck on Jan 07, 2008 at 02:05 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Well, I know it doesn't really make me sign up for an account but the alternative is to force me to validate my email address every single time I comment on a blog there which I find annoying. In fact, it's mostly because of that annoyance that I refuse to create an account there (which in turn just increases my annoyance at having to verify my email every single time!). Sometimes I see a blog post I want to comment on and think "Oh crap! It's on InstantSpot... bah! I can't be bothered with that silly verification process."...

Posted by Sean Corfield on Jan 07, 2008 at 02:30 PM UTC - 5 hrs

You know what - This prompted a conversation between Aaron and me and we have just made a decision to make a change before the production release next week. Starting with the next version, we will still require activation one time, but store that email address as validated. Future comments with that email address will be automatically activated.

Reasonable enough?

Posted by Dave Shuck on Jan 07, 2008 at 02:44 PM UTC - 5 hrs

I should clarify... only verify once on *any* InstantSpot blog. You will not have to confirm for each blog.

Posted by Dave Shuck on Jan 07, 2008 at 02:45 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Thanx Dave - that's a much appreciated enhancement!

Posted by Sean Corfield on Jan 07, 2008 at 06:46 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Don't make me put my email or website. I just want to make a quick comment. I hate any kind of barrier to getting things done on the internet.

Put up captchas to prevent spammers and use bayesian filters to eliminate vanilla "great post" comments.

Better yet, use something like OpenID or Disqus.

Posted by Person on Jan 06, 2010 at 03:34 PM UTC - 5 hrs

Neither email nor website are required. They're provided in case you'd like to leave them for notification of new comments, as a way for me to reach you (in case of your asking me to do so), or to link to your own site (in the case of website field).

This is for others' future benefit, since you already know that, seeing as you were able to post the comment without leaving your email address or website. =)

Posted by Sammy Larbi on Jan 06, 2010 at 04:27 PM UTC - 5 hrs