molly.com

Friday 3 February 2006

Comment Spam Conversations

MY COMMENT SPAM just gets more interesting every day. But now I’m starting to talk back to individual comments, and I feel that perhaps I’ve become a bit too reactionary.

Consider these three bits and see what you think:

  • “I looked through Holzschlag very interesting bloog, but your molly is best.” Um, okay. I have never looked through my own Holzschlag much less anything known as a bloog, and while I’m sure my molly is in fact the best, I’m wondering just how a stupid script like you has come to know that, too.
  • “Love your blog!! though I sometimes disagree with you, you really are intelligent. Always good to read you.” Why thank you, you miserable software-selling manipulative spammer. I appreciate that you love my blog and think I’m intelligent. For the record, I disagree with your very existence. Not that you’d care, considering you are a boring, belligerent, bot bastard. Can you please go away now? Thanks.
  • “Java causes that page www long oneself reads carefully.” – So are you saying that Java can lengthen things? Or are you just trying to sell male enhancement products to geeks?

Friends, help me out here. Is my comment spam trying to send me some hidden message and I’m just missing the point or have I just completely lost all semblance of rational and reasonable behavior?

Okay, don’t answer that last part.

Filed under:   general
Posted by:   Molly | 19:54 | Comments (32)

Comments (32)

  1. nortypig says Friday 3 February 2006 at 20:28

    Ha Ha. You’re lucky cos half of my comment spam seems to indicate they either follow me around, watch me with night goggles on, or happen to know all of my ex girlfriends.

    While I don’t feel I need their products I quite naturally see a correlation between their offerings and several final bad farewells.

    Bots are just so sensitive and intuitive nowdays molly…

    Does anyone actually buy that stuff though? They must. To that person I raise a toast of inadequacy and beg them not to do so anymore. Spammers do this because someone buys. Its like stolen car parts…

    I’m studying for 2 uni exams this upcoming week and you got a laugh out of me 🙂 Thanks.

  2. Ariel says Friday 3 February 2006 at 22:04

    A simple rule: if you can’t understand what the comment is trying to say at the first read. Delete it, and be happy 🙂

    PS: sometimes I get strange comments, but yours are REALLY strange 😛

  3. Tom Simcox says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 06:08

    Yep Delete Delete Delete. Right now if I could change one thing about the web it would be the total abolition of spam. What’s the point in it anyway, anybody know of any studies that actually work out how much spam is effective in getting people to buy their products? I’m guessing not very much apart from the really gullible, but there again you are always going to have gullible people aren’t you?!

  4. Carolyn Wood says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 09:46

    Thanks for a good laugh to start my day. You know, in the early days of feminism, many women looked through their own Holzschlags, and while painful if not done carefully, it was usually a very satisfying experience. Bloogs, however, are an entirely different subject.

  5. Gez says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 11:22

    The cleverest approach I’ve seen from a bot trying to automate a comment that looked like it was genuine was to grab a random paragraph, quote it, and ask, “Is that always the case?” Surprisingly, most times, the comment looks genuine; so much so, that I accidentally answered it on one occasion, although it would obviously only fool someone once (never for a cleverer person than I is). Attempts of bots to leave intelligent comment spam is pretty poor at the moment, but I suspect it won’t take that much longer before they start to look like genuine comments, and even more of a nuisance than they are now.

  6. Robert Nyman says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 13:10

    Yeah, I also regularly get the same kind of crap comments… 🙁

  7. Stacy says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 13:29

    I think, for me, my comment spam compliments me more than my readers too 🙂

  8. Christian Montoya says Saturday 4 February 2006 at 18:51

    I started getting a fresh wave of comment spam, some of them repeats, and then I installed Akismet. Wow, it’s like a breath of fresh air. It really is a must-have.

  9. nortypig says Sunday 5 February 2006 at 00:22

    I’ve also had several close borderline cases but actually following their link revealed they were ‘selling’ rather than ‘contributing’.

  10. Sian says Sunday 5 February 2006 at 02:39

    Spam development I suppose. I’ve had a number of legitimatelooking comments, and only on closer inspection was I able to identify that it was spam. Spam with brains. Hmm.

  11. pbhj says Sunday 5 February 2006 at 03:24

    I agree entirely about {$PARSED_SUBJECT}

    ;0)>

  12. VirtualWolf says Sunday 5 February 2006 at 23:13

    The spam on my website has been to my guestbook, and it’s always trying to sell cigarettes or viagra or whatever-the-hell.

    Fortunately, I started logging IP addresses and found that all the spam was coming from just two IPs. A quick tweak to my code, and voila! No more spam. 🙂

  13. kartooner says Monday 6 February 2006 at 08:38

    I figure there’s some sort of ultra-secret spamming headquarters located somewhere in the middle of Iceland.

    Every time I get one of these fake spam messages I can’t help but wonder why they suddenly took a drastic turn and started complimenting sites rather than just posting gibberish. I suppose in the end — from vented frustration — they realized that compliments (mixed in with gibberish) work better than complete incoherent nonsense, hoping they’ll slip under the radar. Who knows!

  14. Bryce says Monday 6 February 2006 at 08:45

    I’m jealous. You get fun comment spam, but my comment spam is boring. (Yes, I know I shouldn’t be jealous of this. I’m also sad that I don’t get enough telephone solicitors to try out all the funny ways of dealing with them, so I obviously have major priority issues.)

  15. Ara Pehlivanian says Monday 6 February 2006 at 13:56

    Looks like the illiterate are out in force. “If you can’t spell, spam.”

  16. Peter B. says Tuesday 7 February 2006 at 14:25

    Try Joomla + Community Builder + xtdratings. People have to register to comment. Should you need to say “buh-bye” just block ’em and be done. My site gets hate mail. It’s cuz they don’t read it, or the amount of fear they experience is greater than the amount of love they want.

  17. Angsuman Chakraborty says Sunday 12 February 2006 at 10:53

    I too got some of that comment spam praise. Offhand I cannot remember the phrase but it was genuinely complimentary, until I realized it was trying to post a link to organ enhancement sites, organs which I don’t possess.

  18. Miles Burke says Monday 13 February 2006 at 05:02

    …and I thought I got weird comment spam. Molly, your molly bloog is the bestest. 🙂

  19. Sharaf says Monday 13 February 2006 at 12:24

    How do I block a particular IP address…these stupid spammers are really annoying. I found their IP addresses..anyone?

    I use WordPress. Thanks.

    BTW, What is the point of these spammers? They don’t even make sense, so what are they trying to sell? How will they make money if they are advertising jibrish crap? The whole thing is just stupid, and I wish there was a way to get back at these spammers.

  20. Nathanael says Tuesday 21 February 2006 at 14:18

    I’ve never received “good” spam up until today:

    ——->
    “Hi there, I find it quite refreshing to occasionally find a good blog such as yours with a different topic completely. It somehow ads to ones little list of lifes experiences. I seem to have a soft spot for blogs related to content provider and /or sites that have a central theme around submit articles type items. I guess this comes from being a webmaster as well. Thank you and I hope you don’t mind if I visit again next month.”
    ——->

    What the …? If this is my audience, I guess I should start posting more about “submit articles”? And if your list of life experiences can be described as ‘little’ then this person must be no more than 6 months old ….

  21. John Bokma says Wednesday 22 February 2006 at 10:51

    More funny comment spam: http://johnbokma.com/mexit/2006/01/16/zombie-comment-spam-referer-spam.html

    And yes, I am afraid comment spam will get more and more serious. It’s not that hard to scan the page first, and make it look on topic.

  22. John Bokma says Wednesday 22 February 2006 at 10:53

    Oh, and with nofollow you don’t fight comment spam, but you *do* break the web.

    Comment spam is best stopped by moderating comments. With nofollow you harm people who *do* comment, and yourself as well (but just a little).

  23. Pingback: Artueel blog » Blog Archive » Comment Spam

  24. Nathanael says Monday 6 March 2006 at 00:35

    Oooh if this is the sort of spam they’re producing now, I say KEEP IT COMING!!

    >> “I 100% agree with you. Of course that is just my humble opinion. What does everyone else think?”

  25. Troy says Wednesday 15 March 2006 at 12:51

    It’s not boring to read)

  26. Geoff Brown, Deephaven MN says Wednesday 5 April 2006 at 12:16

    Looking out over the next few years, I’m worried that comment spam could end up slowing down the whole blogosphere — and possibly bringing it to a grinding halt. I mean, if the comments aren’t intelligent, who’s going to spend time on blogs any more?

  27. sa says Monday 1 May 2006 at 12:59

    I am afraid comment spam will get more and more serious. It’s not that hard to scan the page first, and make it look on topic

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  32. WiND says Thursday 26 February 2009 at 06:12

    Вообще, откровенно говоря, комментарии тут гораздо интересней самих постов. (Не в обиду автору, конечно :))

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