Spam Spasm
Would you believe it? Minutes after posting late last night (actually, early this morning), I already had a comment. I opened it with excitement--this on the Blackberry, the laptop having been put away--only to find something like this: "Great post. You made some really good points. I have a blog, too. It's about finding legitimate home-based business opportunities. Check it out at" and the URL followed.(Imagine the following words in the nutty voice of the late Sam Kinison or some early Bill Murray character): Will the madness ever cease? Spam in emails doesn't bother me that much, primarily because most spam filters are likely to keep out real mail. Rather than run the risk of losing one legitimate note, I'll put up with a hundred promoting cheap bathtub Viagra, opportunities to make $20,000 a week surfing web sites, or invitations to "Watch Britney Spears Masturbating Live!" (No kidding--that's a real subject line from several years ago, before she was married and a mom and supposedly "all growns up," to quote Vince Vaughn in Swingers.) But spam on a blog, where each post is valuable--representing as it does someone, often a person you don't even know, who took the time to publicly respond to your words? Nah, that ain't gonna cut it.
Note to spammers: your nefarious avocation is purely a numbers game, based on the sadly accurate notion that for every 10,000 or so of these stinkbombs you lay out, there's bound to be a couple of suckers. However, this particular blog--due in part to its often-elevated tone (okay, I'm being a little facetious here) and even more so to its auteur's sporadic posting habits--is hardly a high-volume location. In other words, you're wasting your time, and I'll only erase your posts. Better yet, Blogger/Blogspot has a spam-filtering feature, so there will be a lock on the door to those whose intentions are less than honorable. Thank you, and have a good day sending out 419 scam letters that begin something like this: "My father, the Honorable Joseph M. Undugu, was, until the recent coup, finance minister of Burkina Faso...."
posted by Judson Knight @ 5:59 AM
6 Comments:
Ah! Comment Spam. The new bane of blogging existence.
I've been playing around with the Next Blog button...did a post about it too...so much fun!
Anyway, what was interesting was seeing comment spam. For some blogs, those were their only posts...sad, that.
Some, I was inspired to leave my own comments but I would tag on a little FYI regarding the "Word Verification" feature that Blogger has avaliable. I use that as a deterrent to spam. Thought I was pretty darn clever!
Laughs on me.
Two days ago, I was enjoying the Next Blog adventure again and I noticed comment spam BUT the blogger also had Word Verification.
That burst my bubble. Spam still was posted, but doesn't that mean an actual person and not a computer is playing the spam game?
If so, they need a need a new job. That puts them on par with telemarketers to my frame of thinking.
This leads me to the question:
Is the feature of filtering that you mentioned, different than Word Verification? If so, I need to sign onto it...I personally haven't been hit, but I also know that it is only a matter of time.
Care to share?
Oh,
About Spinal Tap...so far I've been able to sit through 45 minutes before squirming became too distracting and I shut it off....I'll finish it however. I have to give the movie a complete chance......
Okay, I think I have it figured out. The people who are making $20,000 to surf the internet are PAID to spam with or without word verification.
Then in turn they use the money to continue their bathtub viagra habit (costly, you know.)
And what about that bathtub viagra? I mean this is certainly going to keep me up at night and not in =that= way, thank you. I'm having visions of whole water systems having to deal with lotsa horny toads...everywhere.
Great. Now I'm scared.
Definitely B movie material.
;)
Terri
LOL, Terri! I especially love the part about the people getting paid phenomenal sums of money to spam. If so, it must be a conspiracy...
Michele, actually I was talking about Word Verification, which--after all my bluster--I decided not to use because I didn't want to present any barriers to people posting. I can always remove the crap on my own if I need to, and as you say, even with Word Verification, there's no guarantee of a spam-free site, so why bother?
Well, Spinal Tap just may not be your thing. There have been movies other people thought were outrageously funny that, for me, barely elicited a smile. I know this may be heresy in some quarters, but I've found that in recent years, whereas I used to love Monty Python as a youngster, most of their stuff seems just too silly for me now.
Yup,but sometimes, it still fits the bill when all you want is brainnumbing silliness. You can't beat them for that.
Really? You can remove the spam comments? I've been hit, too. I turned on the word verification thingy and now, presto, no more spam!
I'll have to dig to find out how to remove a post. I ended up removing my entire post, comments and all, and reposting.
Why do spammers have to ruin everything? My e-mail filter gets it right about 75% of the time. I guess nothing's perfect.
Olivia, what's funny is that your first post was under "Anonymous," and when I first saw it in my inbox I thought "Great, another spammer" ;-)
Yes, you can remove any comments you wish to as long as you're logged in as the administrator of your blog. Since making my post about spammers, I had another one of those, and likewise eliminated it. All you have to do is to hit the garbage can icon beneath the post. You can use this either to eliminate unwanted comments from your own blog, or to remove your own comments from somebody else's.
And I am thinking about initiating the word recognition deal, b/c my wife Deidre says most people who post expect to be met w/ something like that, and it's not that big of a barrier. Presumably, once a person has gone through the test and proven themselves legit, they don't have to do it again for the next post. At least I hope so.
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