Spammer accounts have cropped up en masse over the past couple of weeks. I'd hoped they'd go away after finding all their comments deleted, but they've stuck around.
Therefore, until further notice, all comments on this blog will be moderated. I can't look at them very often, so it may take several hours between your making a comment and it appearing here. I'm sorry about that, but on the Blogger system there's no way to ban an IP address, so I have to apply moderation to every comment.
I hope that'll be less frustrating than having to read gormless idiot comments from gormless idiot spammers.
Peter
No cooment!
ReplyDeleteHey Peter;
ReplyDeleteI had to do the same when my blog got inundated, and it bites so I totally get it.
I remain amazed that "the platform" can monitor badthink content but can't nuke the obvious spam from orbit.In a day when computers make it possible to give us accurate figures telling us who won national elections in just a few short hours.....nevermind.
ReplyDeleteSuch is life. One reason I have not pursued a blog is the times I have made a web site I was buried under spam. Now I am retired I might try again, but I would just be echoing other sites so less desire for that.
ReplyDeleteBut I do like your site so we will have to put up with some minor inconvenience. Waiting for your next book.
Have a great day.
In an environment of cheap/free VPNs, IP addresses are pretty meaningless. I will admit that I often use the same IP address for each machine on my network at home, but they're all showing up in different states (and sometimes countries, since I have one machine that thinks it's in the London (UK) area).
ReplyDeleteSpammers can easily change their IP addresses between postings. It makes banning by IP address pretty useless.
Peter, when it comes to your new website you will find that using Google Captcha on any submit form will cause spam submissions to drop to near zero. It's remarkably effective at screening out non-human operators.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRussia could have won the PR war in the Ukraine by showing their Spetnaz operatives raiding and killing all the spammers in the region, or even throughout the world.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the club Peter.
ReplyDeletePITA ain't it?
It took over a year for my Trolls to finally go away.
OVER. A. YEAR..
Cost me hundreds of dollars, switching hosting sites, blog addresses, Domain Names, the works.
It was a nightmare.
Moderating comments finally took care of them.
Smart man to get out in front of it.
Good luck.
At least we can still delete our own comments which were typed whilst only half way through the required caffeination. :-)
ReplyDeletePro-tip: let the caffeine start working first.
Really hate to see the necessity of your having to take time to do the screening.
ReplyDeletedamned shame.
Sadly, Welcome To The Club.
ReplyDeletePeople who've never run a blog don't always get it, but working for free, I don't put my time and effort into a nesting spot for pigeons and sea gulls to fly in, screech and squawk, and crap all over everything.
It's also why the permanently banned list is so short I could count them on my fingers, but once someone decides to be an obnoxious troll, they're done, and there are no do-overs.
You've got to do what you've got to do.
I gave a couple of long time commentors the ability to delete comments, and told them to hammer away if I wasn't around. My troll pokes his head up from time to time, but gets deleted pretty quickly. Most of the other readers never see it.
ReplyDeleteAnd my web admin has a plug in that stops almost all the automated robo-spam with no effort.
FormSpammerTrap for Comments - Version 4.00 | By Rick Hellewell
and
Block Comment Spam Bots - Version 2.62
All I can think is that someone in the Blogger/Wordpress ecosystem benefits from spam and trolling, or there would be better tools.
Good luck,
nick