Orcmid's Lair
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2005-05-20

Gaming the Social Space: Googly Blogger Spam Juicers

Orcmid's Lair: Sandy's CyberHome Travels.  I don’t receive many comments on any of my blogs, and I’d like to think it is because Blogger isn’t all that comment-friendly and there’s no trackback support whatsoever.  That’s what I’d like to think [;<).  For a new set of spam hits that are lame enough to leave there as examples of my increasingly-popular comments, see those on the page that this entry is linking to.  (I suspect that the keyword “travel” being on this page may constitute an additional invitation for travel-destination spamming.  We’ll see.)

Oh.  And I turned off anonymous commenting when the first spam appeared and I haven’t tried opening it up again since the rules for non-anonymous spamming were relaxed.  (Of course, requiring commenters to have a Blogger account was at the brink of evil, as is the similar practice for MSN Spaces, so I don’t blame people for not wanting to go to the trouble in order to leave an impulse/spontaneous comment.  And I apologize for the “ick” that may be the experience.  I’m working on it.)

This does not dissuade spammers, who are willing to create Blogger accounts in order to post comments and have their account on Blogger, at least, be a way to get some kind of spam juice.  (I haven’t looked, but the links to poster accounts would be great for an automatic “nofollow” relationship.)

How do we deal with spamming and preserve civility?  Since tracking-back is difficult for me, I usually end-up plunking down stream-of-consciousness commentary hither and yon.  Although it allows an appropriate level of spontaneity, there are other difficulties:

  • The “captcha” thingies that make me squint into a grid and try to figure out the obscured code phrase are becoming irritants, especially when I am asked to do it twice to get through the gates
  • The comment forms that don’t provide a preview (and you know who you are) are a problem because I never know what markup will work, including some of the markup that I use pretty unconsciously (like &nbsp;)
  • The number of ways that comment forms fail to remember me even when I ask them to, and that also lose my post while deciding that I might be a spammer or that crash in the bowels of their anti-spammer setup don’t help me feel particularly welcome.

The most civil comment provision I’ve seen so far is David Weinberger’s simply- mandatory preview arrangement.  That’s all: you have to see a preview.  That happens to work for me and if it is simple enough to derail most automated blog-comment spamming, I’d be happy to use that.  (In a comment-aside at the linked post, David suggests that it might make no difference, but I don’t know how much spam he sees that we don’t because of other defenses he has in place.)


Did I tell you how much I like Blogjet?  I am wandering all over the blogodrome clipping and snipping with my trusty Blogjet window sitting patiently at my fingertips. The one time I got a failure after clicking "post" in Blogjet, I had a few dismal moments until I confirmed that the post actually succeeded and the crash had come afterwards. The error message was pretty inscrutible and I am not exactly sure what software had to be shutdown, but it took Blogjet with it. I really love my Blogjet, though.

 
Comments:
 
This is not a spam comment. Believe me it is not, for real. so I hope this get through. I just wanted to pass by and say hi to orcmid, ok ?
so if you don't mind, whatever code you are, please just let me leave this comment. No, it's not a sollicited comment, but no is not a spam neather, so do you mind ? is just a comment.
Ok let's try. Ciao Orcmid
 
 
How wonderful.   Gianluca is one of the students that David Weinberger was privileged to work with in his trip to Napoli and Capri.   I allowed to David as how terribly envious I was of the conversations and the setting.  So, when David added a note somewhere that Gianluca had created a blog, Le coincidenze, I high-tailed over and spewed welcome all over it.

It feels a little confining, trapped in a comment-space conversation in a system that doesn't support trackbacks and excludes comments from the Atom feed.

Fortunately, we can each receive e-mail notifying us that there has been a comment posted on one of our entries.   E-mail!   Golly.   Like two prisoners in the chateau, thunking Morse code messages on the thick masonry separating our dingy cells.

What can one say about the thin threads of existence here in cyberia?   I suppose that's what we're here to find out.

I want to add something about Gianluca foresaking Italian to blog in English, or, as he says, "Loud Language."  A friend reminds me that there is a lingua franca in our modern world: English as spoken by people who have it as a second language.   That creates a challenge for me as a native speaker, and I suppose the equitable approach would be for me to respond in my clumsy Italian.

When Gianluca writes, I can hear the Italian fused within it.   That's wonderful, and almost as smooth.

Per parte mia, le mie frase sono anche protratto, i miei paragrafi sono brevi.  Ma nessuno di loro due sono pieno di belle frasi e poesia come i suoi.
 
 
You are very kind, and your italian is quite good too, where did you learn it ?
By the way, I just realized that blogger doesn't synch my blog in both adresses, the ftp updated one is at archetypes.it

ciao and see you soon
 
 
I was going to
Learn Spanish in Costa Rica
but got sidetracked in Myrtle Beach. Now i speak fluent Redneck!
 
 
I have no idea what to do with this.  I think I'm trapped in a bad existential hangover. It's kinda personality spam, but way better than a talking moose. I think.  I'm torn between my desire for order, gratitude for commenters at all, and Scoble's idea of fostering free speech.  On this one, Scoble wins, but I have no idea what is happening here.
 
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