In the close to five years that I have been writing this blog , Akismet ( the WordPress spam filter) has intercepted more than 12,o0o spam messages. Approximately another 1,000 pieces of spam got through and I had to delete them myself. In all this time , I’ve only had 247 messages which I felt were genuine comments and which I allowed on my blog. A ratio of over 50:1 ( 13,00 to 247) isn’t fair and readers will not blame me for feeling badly done by. We bloggers live for feedback ; it is irritating that they are so many people who get a thrill out of sending spam and who spend so much time doing so.
Most of these spam messages do not make any sense at all. For instance , a typical message might read “Many thanks for this tips I had been looking all Search engines to locate it!” and it may come from somebody who signs himself ( herself ?) Poczycjomyawnix. Whatever….
Some of the spam messages are funny. My favorite is the one that said ” Many thanks for this post. Can you explain the third paragraph in more detail ? ” I felt good about this comment… for about five seconds … until I realized that my post did not have a third paragraph. Another one said ” Great post. If you are ever in Boston , look me up.” Then I saw it was from a Boston Cab company.(LOL)
In my blog , I often write about restaurants that I go to and I invariably get feedback , though not the type I want. Once , when I’d written about an Indian restaurant , I got a message which said” That place is not bad but for the best Indian food in Edison , go to (……)”. Hmm, I thought to myself ” I must check this place out”. Then I looked more closely and saw that the message had been sent by the owner of that other restaurant ! Well, at least it means someone is reading my blog.
That spammers take the time to troll the blogosphere and send spam is something I don’t understand. The three spam messages I wrote about are funny but the rest are pure drivel. I wonder at the sort of person who writes them .I always think of spammers as being men. Perhaps I’m guilty of reverse sexism but I can’t imagine a woman spammer.
Of all the spam messages that got through to my blog , only one was hurtful. It went something like this “When I started to read this post I thought you had something to say on this subject but I was wrong. It was a complete waste of time. Why don’t you just quit ?”
Somehow, I know that was written by a guy.
PL. keep writing. We are craving for more.Spammers live in their own lost world.
Spam is annoying but don’t let it upset you. Spammers by definition are a useless lot. Also, they are equal opportunity offenders 🙂 — I have friends with blogs who have similar experiences. Ignore their crap 🙂 The main thing is that every now and then there will be some useful and constructive feedback.
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