Monday, July 16, 2012

To V or Not To V? That is the Question!


I’ve been discovered.  Yay?  Uh, no. 
In April I participated in the Blogging From A-Z Challenge.  It was a great experience.  One that I thoroughly enjoyed.  
There was a side effect, though, which I am not thoroughly enjoying.  
To encourage and or make it easier for readers to leave comments, the hosts of the challenge suggested that we turn off moderation and word verification. 
I did both.  During the challenge and a month after the challenge I would get an occasional comment that was clearly a piece of spam   Blogger is great in catching those and none made it to my blog.  The real issue for me is that I have the setting turned on in Blogger to notify me of comments to my blog.  Even though Blogger sweeps the spam comments into a spam folder, I still get an e-mail notifying me of each and every comment.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s a spam comment or a legitimate comment. 
Now, it seems that I have been flagged as an easy spam target.  Have the spammers spread the word? Has the one or two occasional spammers told one or two more and then they told their friends and so on and so on?  Judging by the number of comments now in my Blogger spam folder it certainly seems that way.  As I said, since I am being notified of every comment via e-mail, I am getting 10-15 e-mails a day in my inbox and 98% of those are spam comments. 
I googled the question: “What do spammers get out of leaving spam comments on a person's blog?”
The search returned an easy to understand explanation written by Jim Connolly on his blog Jim’s Marketing Blog. The post was titled “Why Your Blog Comments Don’t Get Published”.
The following is an excerpt from his post:
“Why do spammers do this?  They do this, usually just to get backlinks for their site or client’s sites.  Each backlink is seen by Google similarly to a vote.  The more backlinks a site has, the more votes it gets and theoretically, the higher that site will rank in Google’s search results.  Comment spammers place these links into comments and then use software to attack thousands of sites; trying as many sites as they can, that have no spam protection.  Sites with no protection are flagged as weak and their URL distributed, meaning they get more and more spam!”
I wondered if I should turn word verification back on.   I had a delusional moment and thought that by doing that it might discourage my many, many readers from leaving their many, many comments.   
After spending another few moments indulging in my fantasy of being a famous blogger, I snapped out of it and faced my blogger reality.   I don’t have hundreds and hundreds of readers and therefore I don’t get hundreds and hundreds of comments.  Oh, wait, I take that back, if you count the spammers, then I actually have gotten hundreds of comments.  
I am quite happy, grateful and fortunate enough to have a few favorite blogger friends who kindly and consistently leave thoughtful and encouraging comments. 
I would not be happy if they found it too difficult to communicate and were discouraged from leaving their much appreciated comments.
 So, that’s my dilemma.  Word V or no Word V?  That is the question.  

I have created a page for Anna's Diary.  It can be found under the Tab titled Anna's Diary.
I have posted all of the entries to date there, starting with January 1, 1929.

Here are the catch up entries from Anna’s diary:
Friday, July 12, 1929
Home all day.  Peg and Flo came for supper.  Went for a little ride then took girls home.  Bed early.  Very tired from driving Mr. Nap day and night yesterday.
Saturday, July 13, 1929
Home all day.  Jean home at one.  Had lunch.  She took a nap.  I had working streak on and cleaned house thoroughly.  George & Marietta came over in evening.
Sunday, July, 14, 1929
Jean went to Mass first.  Home and then I went.  Had dinner here.  Took a nap.  Then went to 360 later in the day.  Left Junior there and went to movies with Jean.
Monday, July 15, 1929
Home.  Went to bank to see books on insurance.  Talked with Dick about investments.  Decided to keep At&T and Penn R.R.
Friday, July 16, 1929
Home all day.  Went to 360 in afternoon.  Stayed for supper.  Ma & Pa away to shore.  Jean played tennis.  I came home with Baby. 


8 comments:

  1. I turned on the whole reviewing comments thing and the word verification thing for those reasons alone. Sooooo.....turn it back on if you don't want to deal with a ton of spam :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I moderate my comments, and that way nothing gets to the blog itself.  I had to allow anonymous comments for people like my mom and some friends who can't leave them with blogs they don't have or accounts they don't have etc. The word verification is a problem for some people (heck, I hate it, but will do it, but sometimes the letters are so hard to read...)   I have been lucky as I only got one spam in my folder.   I did get one nutcase lady who didn't like my cards, but it takes all kinds.  I just had my brother show me how to block her totally.  She left three emails for me on my birthday of all days.. The only one I ever received...It was strange.  Funny thing, her art is lovely, so I don't see why she was mean.    

    If you get too many, I would turn it back on.  

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've run into real problems with word verifications lately -- as in not being able to squint well enough to tell what the letters are and gong through half a dozen attempts before deciding my comment wasn't all that important in the first place.  But in the face of rampant spammers, verification is the only sensible approach, to my way of thinking.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I also participated in the A-Z and since like you have noticed more anonymous comments that leave the spam links.  I decided to delete their comments after letting a couple go through.  Especially when some were so blatantly obvious about it. I have yet to turn on comment verification again, but it it sure tempting.  The way I figure it, if their comments never show up on the site then maybe they will eventually go away and bother someone else.

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. I actually have mastered the vw's because I magnify the dickens out of each, go full speed ahead on the first one, because they always get easier.  Whatever you choose to do, is great success with me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I missed this post earlier.... I will always read your posts, word verification or not.  I hate the word verification but it's not enough to stop me from posting.  I don't have that thing turned on where I get emails - wait, maybe I do?  damn.  I'll have to figure that out.  IN the meantime, like Marky said, I will visit no matter what direction you go.

    ReplyDelete