When the blog got its redesign in June 2010, it included a captcha, or a short challenge commenters would answer to prove they were submitting a real comment, not spam.

However, it was recently brought to my attention that the captcha didn’t provide an audio option for those with visual impairments! So we’ve switched to a new captcha plugin called Recaptcha, which provides an audio option. At the same time, the words you decipher to pass the new Recaptcha test are actually words from old books, newspapers, and radio shows that are being digitized! So you’re killing spam AND helping digitize books and radio. Double win.

Anyway, amid all this excitement, if you find you are encountering problems with the new Recaptcha plugin, please don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail or leave a comment here if possible. If we need to roll back to the old captcha standard or try a different one because this is not working, we will!