Ever since I started this blog a few years ago, I've been asked to complete a
CAPTCHA (that distorted graphic you sometimes see that's supposed to differentiate between a computer and a real person) when creating new posts. I didn't think anything of it until the most recent revisions in
Blogger's draft.blogger.com site, which consistently hides the Captcha
word verification box and buttons and makes it impossible for me to post entries (I've tried both
Firefox 3 and IE 7, with no success.) So, I switched back to the old-style Blogger, and then clicked on the little "Why do I have this?" link, which explained that
Google's massive computer arrays think that this is a
spam blog. (I suppose that whether or not my writing constitutes spam is in the eyes of the beholder, but in this case, the beholder is a server with a
dual-core processor.) They think that my blog is spam, but it's perfectly good to sell
AdWords on. Hmm...
On July 3rd, I asked Google to review my blog and turn off word verification. They apparently forgot to look at it, because I just had to ask again. I'm getting close to moving the blog to my own website--no great loss of traffic for Google, of course, but a good example of how relying on algorithms rather than human reviews and common sense can sometimes result in
unintended consequences.
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