A shameless plea for comments and other pipe dreams

I went to comment moderation on all my blogs when I started getting hit with all sorts of spam comments. Sometimes they're written in a Cyrillic script (presumably Russian, but I can't say for certain) or in some Oriental language (I don't pretend to know Japanese, Chinese or Korean either). Of course, some of the spam comments allegedly written in English aren't much easier to decipher.

An awful lot of these are apparently for sex sites of one kind or another (no, I'm not clicking over to see!). But one recent example started with this weird promise, "iphone arab porn german porn mp3 cool whip parfait" -- and went careening downhill from there (and it was submitted on a post about attending church!).

Others are for medications -- "generique viagra" in one recent example -- or boots or purses. Ugg boots seem to be very popular. (I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the links provided in these comments are for knockoffs, not the real designer things.)

Another category of spam comment is the generic "very good informations (sic) here" remark -- coupled with a link to someone's business. Often, despite the questionable English language proficiency of the person providing the comment, these links are to American businesses, sometimes even to law firms.

Folks, at least sometimes, when you pay for SEO ("search engine optimization") this is the kind of garbage you'll get.

I flush all of these.

Still, sometimes, it's tempting to let a few of the comments through. This one, for example:

You are so interesting! I don't suppose I've truly read something like that before. So nice to discover another person with a few genuine thoughts on this subject. Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This website is something that is required on the web, someone with a bit of originality! Feel free to visit my blog post....

Oh my, did I forget to include the commenter's website? Why, yes, I did.

I cherish real comments. But I don't get nearly as many as I used to.

I'm not entirely certain why this is.

Part of it, I'm sure, is that I'm not visiting as many sites as I may have at one time. A lot of sites I used to visit every day have been discontinued. Others are updated only sporadically. In a few cases, the bloggers have passed away. But that's not the most common explanation. I am increasingly convinced that many people dip into blogging for awhile -- and then leave without a backward glance. Older Daughter started a blog when she went for a semester Europe many years ago (that's when I first adopted this nom de plume and started my first, since-abandoned blog). When she came back, her blog went dark. Recently, she blogged again. She didn't send us a link to her site, but she told us she was blogging anonymously about her IVF experience. She was seeking the community (and solace) of others similarly situated. When the second implantation failed, that blog, too, went dark.

Well, actually, this isn't me, still slogging away.
You figured that out by yourself, didn't you?

But, here I am, still slogging away. I have 'real' blogs now as well, that is, blogs written in my own name. And, of course, there's The Blog of Days -- a daily venture, if I can keep it up.

But I don't think I can make a career of this. Would that I could!

I keep thinking I could pull together similarly-themed posts and create an e-book or two. With Amazon's Kindle and similar devices, self-publishing is not as delusional these days as it may once have been. (Or, perhaps, I have become more delusional. I have to acknowledge that possibility....) With nearly 1,700 posts here, there's certainly an inventory of words on which to draw.

As blog posts, much of what I write may be just too long for someone to read at the office -- especially when there are so many other sites that one may want to visit every day. But as e-books? I see people with Kindles and Nooks and other screens every day on the train. Would my stuff 'work better' in that format?

When I started, I had dreams of a book publisher finding me. Other authors have been plucked from the Blogosphere... I thought that someone might pluck me. (Oh dear, that didn't sound right at all.) Well, maybe, with the new technology, I should be plucking myself. (Yikes! Where's that thesaurus?)

It's trying to figure out where to go, and how to get there, that inspires this post. I know there are some lurkers out there, some who visit when they can, some who visit regularly.

For purposes of this post, please de-lurk.

Tell me something about who you are, where you are, what you want to see on this blog -- and what (besides these occasional pity-parties) you'd like to see less of.

Oh, wait, this comment just in: "Link eхchange iѕ nоthing else but іt iѕ simрlу placing the οthеr peгson's web site link on your page at appropriate place and other person will also do similar for you. Here is my page...."

Never mind.