Welcome to Think Out Loud, a weekly meme hosted by Thinks Books. This is a meme where you can post about anything and everything you want...no rules! Make sure you link up over at Thinks Books, too.
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I have a couple of things I've been mulling over and decided I'd just ask y'all what you do! ;)
First of all, I've had an increase in the number of spam comments I've been getting since the beginning of the year. I guess it's not that big a deal but it's irritating. I know some of you use the 'prove you're not a robot' spam control that blogger provides. But what other methods are there? Do those of you who use Comment Love or Disqus have the same problem? Is this something I should just ignore??
Also, I'd like to know how you guys rate books on GR, Amazon, etc., when you're giving a half star rating. For instance, if you're rating a book 3.5 stars, do you mark it a 3 star or a 4 star? My rating system here on my blog has half bookworms (thanks to my daughter) but I've been wondering if I should round up or down where there is no half star available.
So, there are my questions for y'all. :) Please, help me out here! Let me know how you handle spam and/or rounding in your ratings.
I used to get spam comments all the time and grrh! It was so annoying and it freaked me out because that sort of thing makes you think you're going to get a computer virus just looking at their stupid robot comment! I use the basic robot spam control and it's been a big relief.
ReplyDeleteRating is hard because the math girl in me just can't round down for 1/2. My solution is to write the rating before the review 4.5 STARS! ... (the author side of me always appreciates rounding up...the reader side of me appreciates knowing if the rating is so many stars and a half).
I may have to re-institute that basic spam control. It is just annoying. It was just one particular review that was getting spammed all the time, but now it's increased. Including my review of Soul Bender!! What?!? I keep thinking there must be a word in it that those spammer search for...I don't know.
DeleteI do put the half stars in my reviews - just like you said to. But I've just found that I tend to round down...especially with a 3.5 star review. And I don't want to hurt the author's rating because in my mind, 3.5 is still a good read but that might not be reflected if I give it a 3 star.
Thanks for sharing, Robyn!! I hope you've had a lovely day! <3
I don't know that blogger has this but I like how some sites have the Confirm you are not a Bot button which is a lot easier then typing all those numbers. I think it can get frustrating at times? But it might be a feature you pay for? I really have not looked in to that yet as I don't have those problems yet lol
ReplyDeleteFor the other. It all depends on how I feel and what I feel they deserve most. If I feel it was more closely to a 3 start I will give it that. If I feel it's closer to 4, I will give that instead. I always mention it first thing that it is 3.5 Stars!! and then do my review.
Fortunately (fingers crossed) I haven't had many spam comments, so I don't use Captcha cause typing in the numbers annoys me to death! I have never done a half star rating, so I honestly don't know what to say about that other than what Robyn said about putting it in the review...Great TOL. I loved how you used it to reach out to other bloggers. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteI had tons of spam, and turned off the setting for anonymous commenting. I have very few now. As far as the rating, I just go by my gut. If I'm leaning more towards a 4 than a 3, then that's what I rank it.
ReplyDeleteSince I've turned off the CAPTCHA thing, I didn't seem to get much spam at first, but over the last few weeks it seems out of control! On certain posts, I get ten to fifteen spam messages a DAY. It's annoying. I just keep going to the comments on blogger so I can delete them all at once. I've been thinking about using commentluv. Lexxie uses it, and she said she's really happy with it. Just for me personally, I don't think I'll go with disqus because only certain browsers allow you to use it. Before I had a Chromebook, I had to switch to the Google Chrome browser on our laptop.
ReplyDeleteThis probably seems kind of mean of me, but if I rate a book 3.5, I give it three stars because I'm leaning more towards three stars when I give it that rating. I really wish Goodreads had half stars!