Wednesday, February 26, 2014


Comment spam

I rarely get time to look at the comments which Google throws into the spam box but on looking just now I noticed that there were some legit comments there that had been wrongly classified.  I released those I saw but there were over 2,000 comments in the box so I could only scratch the surface.

I released a lot by "Bird of Paradise"

It would help me to pick up legit comments if you used a handle rather than commenting  anonymously.  The spam always seems to be "Anon."


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4 comments:

  1. Use the Name, Luke3:22 AM

    The spam and trolling always seems to be "Anon."

    There, fixed it for you. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4:40 AM

    There, I just broke it. ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:05 AM

    Luke, even your own name has been "borrowed" in the past, whether or not by spammers or jokers, so it doesn't really help!

    ReplyDelete
  4. stinky12:39 PM


    JJR,

    A hash string might also help. That's where the user info (e.g. i.p addr and/or browser footprint) is used to generate a random looking string of characters. Thus, my random string might be something like "aj4sd5r". It would be displayed w/my comments.

    This would enable us, as users, to distinguish one anon commenter from another, but w/out compromising that person's identity. It also makes impersonation all but impossible.

    A site that uses such a hash string in its comment section is Patterico.com.

    In the meantime, I encourage all others to use a handle. Mine is already taken, of course, so the supply of desirable handles is ... undiminished!


    ReplyDelete

Comments in Chinese or Russian will be deleted as I do not understand them. Spammers: Don't bother. Irrelevant comments will not be published