It used to be so easy back in the day, commenting on other people's blogs. You hit the comment button, wrote your message, and bob's your uncle, done and dusted.
Nowadays, it seems you have to jump through hoops to leave a message for the writer of a blog. Captcha, disqus, comment moderation; wherever I look I see bloggers employing these methods to filter out the spam. Of course, it was never something that I considered for my own blog, why would I? The Potty Diaries was too small and insignificant to attract spam, no need for word verification here.
Oh, how little I knew.
About 3 months ago I picked up on a twitter comment where a contact of mine consoled another person that she too got spam in her inbox from blog accounts that she visited - and The Potty Diaries was one of those that she mentioned. Apparently, even if they don't show in your 'published' comment box, spam comments are still active - and so can access the details of other people who leave comments on your posts. Horrified, I investigated and did what I should probably have done significantly earlier; I checked my spam comment box.
For the love of mike. (Yes, we have been watching The Polar Express here. More than once...)
There were THOUSANDS of the damn things in there. It took what felt like days to delete them all, but I did it and sat back congratulating myself; this was the accumulated debris of 5 1/2 years blogging activity, I thought, and I should easily be able to keep on top of it from now on.
*heavy sigh*
Not so much. I've been getting between 50 and 100 comments a day automatically side-lined into the spam box, plus a good few sneaky ones that have made it past the filters and attached themselves to older posts so I don't spot them unless I go looking, and frankly? I've had enough. I have much better things to do with my time than run a 'spam search and destroy' mission every morning. So I have two apologies to make. Firstly, to anyone who received spam in their email box as a result of commenting on The Potty Diaries; I am sorry. I'm trying to sort it and hope this now stops.
Secondly, I apologise to anyone who wants to comment on the blog from now on. For lo, I have turned on the dread word verification tool and whilst I hope it will weed out those annoying comments about duvet coats, viagra, webmaster tools and weight-loss programs (not taking offence at that last one, not. AT. ALL), I also know it makes commenting here more complicated and I totally understand if you now choose not to bother. (Although, I hope that you do).
I am trying to find a more commenter-friendly alternative, but in the short term I'm hoping this will stop the flood of nonsense on The Potty Diaries.
Or at the very least - the nonsense that I haven't actually written myself...
Nowadays, it seems you have to jump through hoops to leave a message for the writer of a blog. Captcha, disqus, comment moderation; wherever I look I see bloggers employing these methods to filter out the spam. Of course, it was never something that I considered for my own blog, why would I? The Potty Diaries was too small and insignificant to attract spam, no need for word verification here.
Oh, how little I knew.
About 3 months ago I picked up on a twitter comment where a contact of mine consoled another person that she too got spam in her inbox from blog accounts that she visited - and The Potty Diaries was one of those that she mentioned. Apparently, even if they don't show in your 'published' comment box, spam comments are still active - and so can access the details of other people who leave comments on your posts. Horrified, I investigated and did what I should probably have done significantly earlier; I checked my spam comment box.
For the love of mike. (Yes, we have been watching The Polar Express here. More than once...)
There were THOUSANDS of the damn things in there. It took what felt like days to delete them all, but I did it and sat back congratulating myself; this was the accumulated debris of 5 1/2 years blogging activity, I thought, and I should easily be able to keep on top of it from now on.
*heavy sigh*
Not so much. I've been getting between 50 and 100 comments a day automatically side-lined into the spam box, plus a good few sneaky ones that have made it past the filters and attached themselves to older posts so I don't spot them unless I go looking, and frankly? I've had enough. I have much better things to do with my time than run a 'spam search and destroy' mission every morning. So I have two apologies to make. Firstly, to anyone who received spam in their email box as a result of commenting on The Potty Diaries; I am sorry. I'm trying to sort it and hope this now stops.
Secondly, I apologise to anyone who wants to comment on the blog from now on. For lo, I have turned on the dread word verification tool and whilst I hope it will weed out those annoying comments about duvet coats, viagra, webmaster tools and weight-loss programs (not taking offence at that last one, not. AT. ALL), I also know it makes commenting here more complicated and I totally understand if you now choose not to bother. (Although, I hope that you do).
I am trying to find a more commenter-friendly alternative, but in the short term I'm hoping this will stop the flood of nonsense on The Potty Diaries.
Or at the very least - the nonsense that I haven't actually written myself...
