I find it very interesting to review the comments that are left on my blog. They fall into three major categories.
1. Automatically deleted spam.
I have a spam filter that automatically discards the most blatant spam. I see a total of how many spam comments were deleted, but I never see the actual posts.
2. Preserved spam.
I have a spam folder that holds the comments that look and smell like spam to the filter, but the filter has self-confidence issues so it asks me to review them before they are discarded. Sometimes these are real comments, but normally they are generic comments (like “This blog is great!” or “I love your blog!” or “Good point, I agree”) that include a link to a website trying to sell something. Sometimes I remove the link and keep the affirmation. I’m only human.
3. Legitimate comments.
When a real comment is left on my blog I get an e-mail notification.
Today I got a preserved piece of spam. It was in Russian. I was curious, so I stopped by Babelfish for help with translation. Babelfish alerted me to the fact that it was spam from a website of ill repute (the message actually became pretty funny through translation, but since I don’t have an R rating on this blog I won’t post any of it).
I have numerous post ideas, but it’s been a busy week and the next few days look much the same. Shape notes, the PSU Blue White game, and the art of noticing people are on the forecast. Stay tuned. . .
2 Comments
April 28, 2009 at 7:41 am
I also have heaps of comment spam that gets left on my blog. I don’t have a spam filter though, so I have to delete all of it manually. For awhile I tried to ban IPs of serial spammers, but they have ways of getting around that, so I’ve stopped going to the bother of banning IP addresses. It’s really annoying, and I’d say I get anywhere from 10-20 spam comments per day. Some of them *almost* look like they could be legit, but most are very clearly spam. For comparison, I get a real comment on average probably once every couple weeks.
April 28, 2009 at 10:35 am
WordPress uses Akismet as a spam filter. You can download Akismet free for personal use at http://www.akismet.com.