You know, “literate” and “illiterate” both have the same vowel to consonant ratio (1:1). But, “idiot” (3:2) has more vowels to consonants than (2:3) “dummy.” “Moron” stands at 2:3. So, it’s “smarter” to call someone an idiot than a dummy or moron? “Fool” has a 1:1 ratio–I guess that makes it a fence-straddler?

If I say that I was conversing (3:7) with someone, as opposed to talking (2:5) to someone, isn’t the former smarter than the latter? Comparing, however, “conversing” has a 15:35 ratio while “talking” has a 14:35 ratio. But, that is pretty close. And both have more than twice as many consonants, which would seem to make both qualify as stupid under the theory behind this filter.

A childish thing to say might be: I know you are but what am I, which is a 9:10 ratio. What about: E equals MC squared? Smart, no? 7:9 ratio–more consonants than vowels!

I think the reasoning behind this filter is flawed.

So if you use the filter, you will want stupid people to visit your site… but not comment.

Maybe you don’t want your advertisers–or your family–to know the stupidity of your readership.

I think that if they are after spam, there is already a tool for that.

Yes, Akismet works pretty well.

P.S. - Now I want to write code to count vowels.