Mike's post last Monday about disappearing comments on his blog, and their mysterious migration to spam, led me to go back and check my own comment history. Behold! There were 638 comments in my "awaiting moderation" file on Blogger, many of which were, indeed, spam, but many of which I also remembered reading before they were somehow algorithmed away into the potentially-naughty dungeon.
WTH, over?
I spent some quality time working my way down the list (still not done as of this writing), approving most of the comments and deleting those which were actual spam. I'll not repeat the comments that Mike made in his post, but it occurred to me that spam comments seem to come in topical waves.
There was a period in mid-2020 of multiple ads for "Ugg" boots, several spasms (no pun intended) of Viagra ads between 2018 and 2021, a series of ads for office furniture (?) in 2016, and repeated rounds of phishing for personal info (such as "I really like your blog, click here to read mine" and "Please send your contact information so I can share ideas with you") over many years. There are also periodic bursts of ads for whatever wonder drug of the moment I should ask my doctor about.
Occasionally, the spam matches the topic of the post, leading me to suspect bots trolling for potential places to insert ads: just this morning, up popped a comment on a post from May of 2014 that dealt with the most widely spoken languages (other than English and Spanish) in each state ... the comment advertised private English tutors in Saudi Arabia. I doubt that many Saudis read my blog, but in case they ever do, they'll know where to find help with their English.
I've received relatively few crude comments of the "Pauline Hickey" sort that Mike has gotten ... I was getting them for a while, but they eventually ... uh ... petered out.
And I have, of course, gotten the occasional broadside from people who consider me an America-hating, ratbastard commie socialist libtard who needs to go back where I came from (that would be Pittsburgh, I guess) when I express some objectionable bit of rational commentary. I just consider the source and move on.
Has anyone else noticed trends or cycles in spam comments? How about targeting of advertising comments that tie to your posts? Leave a comment ... I'm curious to know if it's just me conjuring up another conspiracy theory, or if it's a real thing.
Have a good day. More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
I was surprised to find only a couple of dozen in my spam comment folder. I used to check it periodically, but had neglected that for some time.
ReplyDeleteI guess I've offended and alienated enough people that even the bots avoid me now!
I have noticed the same trends you mentioned over the years. So it doesn't seem like a conspiracy theory to me. Just spam 🙂
ReplyDeleteAfter many days of 100 to 150 comments that were redirected to the spam folder, I think I may have had more than your 638, but I'm not sure. But from the comments I got it seems certain people were singled out. So all I have to say is WTF!
ReplyDelete