I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but these last few months this site has been pretty much overrun by spam comments. Well, yesterday, as I sat at my desk, sick with the flu, manually deleting over 100 of them, I decided that I’d had enough. My first thought was just to pull the plug on the whole site, but my nutrition/technical/small arms consultant, Steve Cherry, offered what I hope is an agreeable alternative. Steve is working on the site right now, and, when he’s done, you won’t be able to post comments without registering first. It might be a pain, but after you’ve put your name and email address in, it shouldn’t ask you again (assuming you don’t delete the cookie)… Sorry about any inconvenience, but I really couldn’t take another hour of deleting spam. Life’s too short… And, I guess it goes without saying, but I won’t be using your email addresses or any other information collected. This isn’t about harvesting your personal information — it’s about keeping the spammers at bay. Thanks for understanding.
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23 Comments
…. And I didn’t mention it in the post, but you can register with an alias if you’d prefer.
I considered registering as “Jellybean Microfilm Sailboat” but I just ended up with my name.
This latest wave of blog spam was copius difficult to deal with. The spam comments were laced with links to legit websites instead of the normal gambling, p0rn, etc. This made blacklisting useless. I don’t yet understand what their desired result was but we had to take action. This blog was getting peppered with the stuff.
Users’ email addresses will only be seen by Mark and myself and that we promise not give them to anyone. The only reasons for registering with your email address is so you can fetch your password if you happen to forget it or if Mark needs to contact you for some reason.
As every blogger knows, we’re in a constant arms race with spammers. Thanks for helping us fight the good fight.
Oh and try to avoid processed flour. “It’s good for glue, but bad for you.”
Can I be the alias “John Galt” since he don’t come around here no more?
Good idea. Then you can post long, partisan, talking-points articles that you may not have even read.
I have to read them!!
The registration gizmo just told me that “The Original Tony Buttons” was too long, so I went with the tried and true “Tony Buttons”. I was tempted by the gizmo’s offer to be “The Original Tony Butt” though.
I was getting spam comments for awhile and then they just stopped. It’s a sad day for a person when not even spammers want to leave comments. In a way I miss the constant reminders of how small my penis is and how much I need software and drugs at great prices.
Hey wow, that was easy. Anihoo, I’d have been sad if you’d pulled the plug on your site just because of a few spammers.
My taint got cut off.
The spam did seem excessive. Maybe you got sick from spam poisoning. Anyway, I hope both your belly and blog are feeling better.
I changed my user name so you’d know it’s me again.
I’ll miss Dick Cheney’s taint; but I know it’s still there, underneath all that protection.
DCET, try editing your profile utilizing both the first and last names. Then select [firstname lastnamee] for display.
I liked reading all the clever spam last week. They were always from some English-sounding man, like William Thorndike, started off with a polite compliment then deteriorated into some unintelligible agrammatical underlined video game phrase. Thanks for your eyeball-popping hard work in making this a safe place to discuss life, the universe, and everything.
I know it’s wrong, but now that the spam is gone, I find myself kind of missing it…. If it wouldn’t be asking too much, could some of you start slipping in the occasional link to a penis extension site, or offers to refinance my home? Actually, any kind of spam would be OK… just something to break up the monotony.
I am a Nigerian Princess and in need of an overseas partner for an utterly confidential and “top secret” transaction.
Hey, stubled across your blog and I think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
One thing you don’t seem to address is various ways to lengthen your penis. If you would like to find out some of those ways, stop by me site.
Hillary, if I knew that you were a wealthy Nigerian Princess, I never would have allowed you to have married Steve… I would have taken you and Linette and run away to one of those polygamous communities in Utah.
And, as for you, Manford Longfellow, I don’t know what you’ve heard on the Internets, but my penis is quite lengthy. (There is, admittedly, an issue with regard to girth, but length is not a problem.) So, peddle your wares elsewhere.
…Now that you’ve changed your name back to Ken, my reference to “Manford Longfellow” seems a bit odd.
Who would of guessed that the my membership profile is retroactive and changes globally across the whole blog. This makes pseudonyms for humor posting purposes a tad more difficult!
Not that I’d ever use an alias, but, if I were to do so, I think it could probably be done by using different browsers.
You don’t need to use multiple browsers. Just logout (under ‘Misc’ on the sidebar) and then create a new account.
I guess the cost of creating cute names will be user administration. Use sparingly.
My taint is back! Thanks Steve!
Ugh. All this comment spam is certainly annoying isnt it? This seems like a good solution though :)