Housekeeping Note: Disappearing Comments

I need to post this so I can save some time by just sending people this link when they inquire. A new TypePad glitch seems to have surfaced recently: the system now occasionally provides a "captcha" field after you hit "Post" for your comment. Very unfortunately, it often appears below the visible field in the way the comment page is loaded on your screen. So you might not actually see it.

And it doesn't always appear, so people aren't necessarily looking for it.

This means that sometimes, and only sometimes, after you think you've posted a comment, you have to scroll down, see the captcha, fill it in, and then complete your send in order for the comment to actually get sent and make its way to me.

Quite understandably, this has been leading to a number of people emailing me saying "Why didn't you post my comment? There was nothing offensive in it," etc.

It's not me—it's that the comment you wrote and thought you sent was never sent, and I never received it.

I don't know what to do about this other than to tell you about it. I guess we just have to wait until the folks at TypePad get around to fixing it. Which I hope will be soon. The way it is, it's an unnecessary waste of time all around, and creates unfortunate misunderstandings.

If you've had a comment "disappear" recently with no apparent reason why, this might explain it. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Mike

Comments

[Russ]

Well I would say something about this post but I can't, or can I?.....

[Bill M]

Next you'll be telling us about amazing articles you've written, that have also disappeared, but stay tuned, more great stuff will come ... eventually.

:)

[The Lazy Aussie]

A few times I've got, "cannot accept that data".

[Charles Lanteigne]

Whew! There I was, wondering what was so abysmally dumb and/or obtuse in my previous comment...

[Mike Johnston]

Lazy,
Here's the explanation for that.

Mike

[hugo solo]

Isn´t all the true.

"Comments are moderated, and will not appear until the author has approved them. "

[latent_image]

Mike, perhaps you might amend your post to include the suggestion that if a comment is requiring some time and effort to write, then it's always a good idea to copy it (e.g., to Notepad in Windows).

[ed]

Is it possible to place the captcha above the comment box?

[Miserere]

Mike, this isn't recent, it's been happening for years (literally). It appears random, but I've noticed it occurs more commonly after I update Firefox, which leads me to believe it might have something to do with cookies, but I ain't no web/browser expert so treat this as mere speculation.

[phil]

Hi Mike,
I might be wrong but I think I get captcha when I post a hyperlink, and not when it's just text. Maybe?

cheers phil

[Mike Johnston]

Ed,
I'm sure the people at TypePad could do that--or make the captcha appear before you're allowed to hit the Post button--but I can't.

Mike

[Mike Johnston]

Phil,
I seem to most often observe it when I'm putting in an embedded link with html. Plain hyperlinks don't always do it. I don't know the exact triggers.

Mike

[Richard]

Are there any options on the "captcha" field? Some of them are almost impossible to make out. It seems that something that can easily be read by a human would suffice in almost all instances.

[James B]

Mike,

I've had this a couple of times (i.e. Captcha popping up, rather than not knowing it had been triggered and was blind to the box). Is this not a layout issue? i appreciate that on an iMac 27 I have more screen real estate than some, but a layout change could make this problem go away?

I have a suspicion this issue may be more prevalent with the "shorter" posts+comments, as your right hand side bar of links (or lynx) pushes the Captcha box downwards. The Captcha dialogue box will appear at the lowest level, which could easily be off screen (downwards) in a short post.

I do think ultimately this is a TypePad issue, not TOP layout, but in the interim a layout change could avert the issue?

[Paris]

I'm SO glad that someone else saw the captcha! I thought it was just me, and a further sign of mental slippage.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

Yeah, I've been seeing the randomly appearing captcha for some time now. And sometimes finding a comment sitting there waiting hours later (which gets into other problems to actually get posted; cut and paste to a new comment is usually easiest).

I'm starting to remember to check. It DOES end up off the page most of the time for me.