Wednesday 27 August 2014

Spam-A-Lot... No More!

Yeah, right! Spamalot (with apologies to Monty Python's Flying Circus) is the right term - I'm getting pretty annoyed! Actually I'm getting pretty annoyed about a lot of things at the moment, not least of which being that it has been raining - HARD - and when it rains my phone line sounds like frying bacon in a pan, which of course buggers my internet connection. Thus I am in a pub so as to use their WiFi connection (currently The Toll Gate in Turnpike Lane, North London if anyone fancies a 'meet and greet' and a pint). Today I am having to do some desk research on behalf of one of my two significant others (a hospital dietician) on the dietary requirements and guidelines applicable to cardiac babies... Yahhhhn! By the way: Desk research is a sideline of mine (in case anybody has any work - I need the cash!). But what is REALLY pissing me off is this:

Up until now I have always followed a policy of allowing open access to posting comments on this blog free of moderation, rarely if ever interceding other than to post comments of my own, in fact encouraging its use as a kind of discussion or bulletin board. However for some time now I have been aware that an individual - or individuals - has / have been posting comments which on the surface look vaguly genuine but which include a link to something the person or group describes as 'my blog' but which in fact turns out to be a link to a foreign language commercial site.

Now I'm not sure what all this is about or what the individual or group concerned expects to get out of it (I suspect it is some sort of search engine optimisation strategy), but it has to stop. Therefore I have had to instigate moderation, which basically means that from now on all comments will automatically pass through me via email for vetting before being published. It's a bloody pain, but I've been driven to it. In the meantime, rest assured I will be trawling through the site removing the offending material as and when I have the time!

2 comments:

Vlad said...

Perhaps the spammers need a long stay in one of your institutions. It seems a reasonable enough thing to give a young miss caught peddling dodgy pharmaceuticals the opportunity to attend a residential treatment program instead of going to jail.

Toyntanen said...

Oh so very true, Vlad! And who ever he or she is they are still trying. I have picked up on two attempts in as many days.

But now they are not getting through onto the blog - and I have marked them up as spam, so hopefully they'll eventually start getting rejected by Blogger before getting even as far as my email.