by Rick Blechta
The time has come to do something about spam comments on our blog. I use “our” here because I (for one) consider Type M for Murder to be a big family.
However, like every family, we have “troublesome relatives.” I’m referring to that odious segment of humanity known as spammers. These people come to our blog to sell things or tell you about things that they want to sell you. They troll their way through blog pages like ours and leave their copy & paste messages, hoping to attract more business.
I’m sure the vast majority of people visiting Type M don’t bother to click on the links left behind by spammers, but it certainly does degrade your experience seeing all these messages.
I handle the moderation of our web page, and I’m constantly checking comments to remove spam. This past weekend, I happened to look back to some older blog posts (and don’t forget, Type M goes back to 2006!) and found hundreds of spam comments that have been left long after the posts were published. It took me several hours to purge them all. To say the least, I’m completely fed up.
Sooooo, beginning right now, ALL COMMENTS on Type M will be checked before they are posted. I will do my very best to review comments as quickly as I can and upload them. I suspect that this alone will cut down on spam comments right out of the box because these Odious Creatures will see that there is no hope.
I think I speak for everyone when I say that I’m sorry this has come to pass. Believe me, it’s a huge pain in the neck for me, but the Type M crew all want your experience here at our blog to be a lovely one, and spam doesn’t help that. Some recent spam messages have been quite appalling.
This DOES NOT mean that comments will be censored in any way. Good discussion often involves disagreement, and we do want to encourage good, vigorous discussion. The ONLY reason a comment will not be posted is because it is spam.
Thank you for your understanding!
7 comments:
Rick, as a relatively new adopted member of this family, I've been offended and distressed by the recent spammer invasion. I am glad you are doing this but sad that it has become necessary. I always enjoy this blog, the various backgrounds of the members, and the points of view expressed. I hope your moderating will not be too big a burden. (Would that this aggregate of talented mystery authors could detect and hunt down every last spammer and silence them all--but alas...)
Anna,
Many thanks for those thoughts. I'll do what I need to when it comes to spammers making our blog a less-than-ideal place to visit.
Your suggestion about hunting them down suggests a good start on a plot for a very gripping novel, I think!
Thanks! And many thanks for visiting us. Glad you're enjoying the experience.
By the way, you're the first person whose post has been caught by the new system. Congratulations!
It's a lot more work for you, and I want you to know that I, for one, very much appreciate it. Thank you!
Rick, thank you for doing this. I'm so sorry that this is such an unfortunate reality. I think I'm going to kill a spammer in my next book in your honor.
So sorry you have to do this, Rick. They really are scum.
Well done, thou good and faithful moderator.
Sigh.
Thanks to everyone who has written messages of support. We will win this fight!
Today, I found a post from 2006 (Type M's first year) that had 87 spam comments. I'd missed it on my first pass through the archives.
It's just gotten ridiculous.
At least now we won't have any more new ones.
Until the spammers figure out a work-around…
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