Recently, I have started to get a large amount of commercial spam in my inbox, which are redirected comments from this blog. The recent post 'Whitesands' especially has attracted a lot of unwanted attention from the spambots. I am reviewing and deleting around 20 comments a day. I know they are not appearing on the blog, as Blogger's spam filters are fairly effective, so thus far they are only an inconvenience to me - Unless You Know Better.
I'm very reluctant to reinstate that awful Captcha thing for all comments, as I know what a PITA it is from commenting elsewhere. As long as it's only me that suffers the inconvenience I don't mind too much. But if it's bothering readers I will have to think again.
I generally request follow-up comments to be emailed to me whenever I comment on someone else's blog, and I have been getting a lot of spam comments from two other blogs in particular - JuliaM's Ambush Predator and Woman On A Raft. It would appear that event though the spam doesn't appear in the blog, the email notification system is working before the filter rather than after it.
If this is happening to you, please let me know either here or by email and I will consider reinstating the dreaded Captcha. I don't want to do this, but if it's upsetting my loyal readership (thanks, both of you) then I will have a think about it.
Thank you.
No spam here Richard. I wouldn't worry about it too much anyway, since your readers must have their own methods of removing spam from their inboxes as well as your filters.
ReplyDeleteI'm not getting any spam comments from here, Richard, but if I can just take this opportunity to tell you about my exciting new website which page you will find informative very indeed?
ReplyDeleteHi Richard.
ReplyDeleteNo spam here either.
I agree that some of those Captchas are a real PITA. But there are different variants - some of which are decidedly exasperating. At least one is nigh-on impossible to decipher by an old codger like me.
Hi Richard.
ReplyDeleteI often get spam form Julias, it seems you're right and although the comment gets blocked, the email notification still goes through.
However. By the time the spams start to come through the conversation is well over so I just unsubscribe from that post.
No spam here either Richard.
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ReplyDeleteNo spam here either Richard. Frankly I'd rather put up with spam than those awful captcha thingies that take 3 or 4 refreshes before you can figure them out! Hitting the delete key is much, much easier.
ReplyDeleteNo spam from you but a lot of spam allegedly from smoky sites. I have filters so it's no problem ;)
ReplyDelete"I generally request follow-up comments to be emailed to me whenever I comment on someone else's blog, and I have been getting a lot of spam comments from two other blogs in particular - JuliaM's Ambush Predator and ..."
ReplyDeleteAh! Funnily enough, 'Angry Exile' had the same issue on a couple of posts he'd subscribed to on mine and DM'd me, so when I got home (thinking they'd escaped the spam trap) I checked. But all I could see was perfectly legitimate comments published, and a spam net full of crap.
It was as if his subscription has got confused about what it was supposed to alert him to, and was reading spam comments as 'real'. I don't subscribe to posts for follow-up comments myself, so I've no idea if this is a new phenomenon, but we came to the conclusion it was a hiccup in the subscription function from Blogger.
There is a hell of a lot of spam around lately - I used to get say 15-20 comments in the trap a day - since about last month, I've been getting three pages worth a day!
Yup, that's confirmed spam levels are way up. After posting the comment above, I cleaned my spam trap out. Two hours later, another 20 were caught in it.
ReplyDeleteXX so thus far they are only an inconvenience to me - Unless You Know Better. XX
ReplyDeleteWell.... I keep getting the notifications of "new post", even when you have wipped them here. Same at Julias place, and one or two others.
I have taken to binning anything "annonymous", which is a shame, when some genuine people can not be arsed registering, and merely "sign" their posts at the bottom.
"Bunny", "Jaded", or "Pensivat", for example.