Saturday, August 20, 2005

So What's This TypeKey Thing All About?

Typekeyenabled
You've seen it. And you've probably not liked it. And I understand your dislike. I don't really like it either. But the darn thing works and has achieved its goal.

It's that silly "TypeKey" thing that you have to use is you want to leave a comment here.

Some people aren't sure just what its all about. Well, that's the topic for today.

First, a little background. Many blogs, including this little blog, allow readers to leave comments. Some don't. A lot of the big dogs either don't allow comments at all, or will turn comments off on certain posts. There could be different reasons for that. But, as a general rule, comments on posts here are open.

There's usually no way of knowing if whoever leaves a comment is who they say they are. And that's usually not a problem. But every now and get, you get some prick who ... well, is a prick. (Okay, perhaps I shouldn't have written that. But you should see what I was going to call them!) With the growth of this little blog, more and more of those types show up.

There's also another problem, and that's comment spam. You know, people (I know, it's not nice to call them pricks) who leave comments that are nothing but links to some gambling or porn site.

So, what to do about them?

Well, there are different methods you can use. Blogger has the option to restrict only registered Blogger users to comment. TypePad (the host for this site) has something similar called TypeKey. The main difference is that having a TypeKey account doesn't make you register for a blog. Blogger's process makes you sign up for a blog there. TypeKey doesn't.

TypeKey registration is actually all done at SixApart (the company that owns TypePad, TypeKey, MovableType, LiveJournal, etc). That is, none of the information is stored here. If you have a TypeKey account, you can use it on any TypeKey-restricted site, no just one.

If you have a TypePad account (you have a TypePad site or are a TypePad author), you can easily add TypeKey access to your account.

Now, many will say it's a pain. Yes, I agree.

Many will say they don't like providing information to others. Yes, I understand.

Many will say they won't visit sites that require registration to comment. Okay, I understand. Perhaps that explains the drop-off in readership.

However, understand that I don't have your information. SixApart does. If you have a TypePad account, they already have the information anyway. But if you don't want to deal with them, you can't leave comments here. Sorry.

Oh, and when I say I understand your feelings about not liking registration, I understand. I really do. And I'm looking for a better solution than TypeKey. But, since I don't have full access to the server (since TypePad is hosting), it's not possible for me to implement different processes. Perhaps if I move to another host, or self-host, I'll be able to implement a better process.

If you have a process that works well, let others know about it. Leave a comment. Or, if you don't like that, write about the process on your blog and link to this post and leave a TrackBack so folks here can find out about it.
UPDATE:
Thanks to Jo from Jo's Cafe for helping me run down this issue and it's resolution.

There appear to be issues (at least on occasion) with TypeKey and the Internet Explorer browser. And this impacts a majority of the readers here. It appears to me to be related to the cookie settings.

Now, some TypeKey blogs allow TypeKey sign-in, but don't require it. On those, you'll see the Name, Email, and URL boxes if not signed in. If you sign in and still see the boxes, then you're not actually signed in. So don't get confused by that.

Anyway, if you're running into this issue, change your settings to allow cookies from TypePad and TypeKey:

Click Tools > Internet Options > Privacy > Settings/Sites

Enter "typekey.com" and click "Allow." Then enter "typepad.com" and click "Allow."

That should allow TypeKey sign-in to work on this and other TypeKey enabled blogs.

5 comments:

  1. Jo:
    Thank you for helping me run down the issue with IE. I do appreciate it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah...! Now I can leave a comment!
    I TOLD you that thing was not working. How come you wouldn't take MY word for it? Huh?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ah...! Now I can leave a commen!
    I TOLD you that thing was not working. How come you wouldn't take MY word for it? Huh?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I told you the same thing I told Jo: Hey, it works for me.

    She got back on her computer and tried different thinkgs. We worked out what the problem was. Why didn't YOU do that? Huh?

    ReplyDelete

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