Friday, November 02, 2007

Word verification on -- for now anyway

Barb and Bee and maybe a few others will be miffed at me -- but I had to activate word verification on the comments after a dozen or so spam comments today.

Two came in the early morning... it may have been a test. I deleted the comments without realizing that I had to exercise the "remove forever" option because the HTML in the "name" of the "commenter" was what the spammer wanted to plant in the first place. Then, when I logged on now, there were 10 more. I suspect an escalation.

Why it would be to a spammer's advantage to plant spam comments in a July or, worse, a March post is beyond me; one of the more technically-minded among you may be able to explain.

But spammers are no different from everyone else in one respect -- at least these weren't -- the spammers only left their comments on short posts.

*Sigh*

And memo to the Blogger people, should you be looking in: Is there some way to remove the HTML "name" (Xanax forever, that sort of thing) and leave the text of the comments? I mean, well, they all said things like "nice blog" or "wonderful." I'd have liked to keep those parts....

10 comments:

susan said...

Not being one of the "technically-minded", I can't give you any insight on the why's & what-the-heck's of spammers, BUT if you want to keep the nice comments without the link back, you could always copy the text and repost it anonymously! (I did that once when a friend unwittingly used LG's first name in a comment on my blog. The only hesitation I have in using that is that for a week or so afterwards it was awfully tempting to go in and "edit" other comments. ..) Hoping you are soon spam-free again!

Dr. A said...

You stand your ground, dude! Always word verification. Everybody's doing it... HA!

Jeni said...

Get rid of spam but keep the "nice" comments, huh? I think that comes under the header of "can't have your cake and eat it too" doesn't it? Got a chuckle out of the idea though. And as far as word verification, it's not THAT big a pain in the behind, really, it's not! Do what ya gotta do!

Shelby said...

I support the word verif troops myself...thinking of getting a magnet for the back of my car.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

I always put 'remove forever' when deleting.

Lahdeedah said...

I think word verifier is standard. I think you were being awfully liberal for not having activated it ;)

Seriously, Word Ver is okay, EVERYONE's doing it.

Cliff said...

Word Verification is only a royal pain when you're in a hurry. Those who want to leave a message will no matter what.

Patti said...

I agree word verification is no big deal, and only takes a few seconds. I don't have it, but maybe I should.

The Curmudgeon said...

Thank you all for your understanding. I assume the need for this will be temporary... but I'm such a coward, I might not remove it right away.

The other problem with word verification is that my eyesight isn't the greatest... screen glare, middle age, inability to see through bifocals -- a combination of things really... so I will frequently screw up when trying to enter the letters. Then I have to do it over. Sometimes over and over.

Susan -- interesting idea about "anonymous" comments. Hmmmmmmm.

And, Jeni, of course I want to have my cake and eat it too. Who doesn't?

Patti said...

I commiserate, Curmudgeon, about seeing the letters correctly. Sometimes the q is a g and the h is a b to my eyes.
I have bifocals too and often must bob my head up and down while looking at screen and trying to avoid glare