I have watched and read all kinds of comments being posted on blogs.. Other folks blogs and my own... But here recently we have been having really nasty vulgar sexual comments placed on this blog..
I killed them as fast as possible, but they are making it thru blogger's spam filters even though they contain words that would immediately qualify as vile vulgar nasty sexual matters.... I find it amazing that blogger isn't able to stop a comment that contains several F bombs in every sentence....
So for now, I have eliminated anonymous comments on the blog.. I know others have taken this step as well... If it is a problem, you can send me an email by looking in my profile for the email address.... I will post your comment for you... OR just sign up for a Gmail account even if you never plan on using it and you will instantly have a signon to post a comment...
I know that some folks are really opposed to Google as a company and do not want anything to do with a gmail account... The opposition arises from Google's use of your personal information to make money... They tend to sell everything they know about you and your browsing trends, and folks don't think that is the right thing to do...
Also Rick Doyle has a really good post on how to obtain an OpenID, which will allow you to post on a large number of venues by only registering once... His post on this subject is available Here ..
Once these nasty folks move on to other addresses, I will turn the anonymous posting back on.. I do not want to discourage comments as I get relatively few comments the way it is... But I do not feel that sexually filthy comments can be left on my blog for even one second... And it will take me longer than that to find them.... and delete them...
If you have further suggestions on how to handle this, please leave those ideas....
Retired Rod
A DIFFICULT PHONE CALL FOR KELLY AND I TODAY
16 hours ago
I'm with you Rod--I get few enough comments I hate turning off the anonymous feature but the spam NOT caught by Blogger lately is tremendous!
ReplyDeleteHaving the same problem here. It is a royal pain!
ReplyDeleteI've been getting more spam lately too. Don't know what's changed. Almost all of mine are trying to post on a post from last November, my Thanksgiving one. Older comments on my blog are moderated so they are all caught right away. I must have had a hundred or more spam comments in the past few weeks, all on that one blog post.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't receiving vile comments but I was receiving spam so I turned off anonymous too, not that I post much anymore but was still getting these comments for posts years ago.
ReplyDeleteBlocked my Anonymous commenter last summer & have had no problems ever since. And I have no intentions of ever turning it on again. We all enjoy comments but not to the point of having to go through all that Anonymous crap. My comments are way down from a few years ago since cancelling Anonymous but I'm fine with that now. The numbers are no longer important to me. It's the quality & sincerity of someone's comment I appreciate. I've had a Shout Box on my side bar for a few years now & that has worked very well for folks who can't get through all that Google crap to make a comment. The Shout Box is easy & I like the fact it doesn't have a counter. Got over that counting comments thing a very long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI finally blocked anonymous comments just about a week ago. It was getting where I would just clean up one batch and another would appear taking their place. I'm really not sure if I'll reactivate it or just leave it blocked off. Be Safe and Enjoy!
ReplyDeleteIt's about time.
I understand completely your frustration with the volume and vileness of recent spam comments on our blogs. I was getting a few hundred of these a day until recently. It has slowed down some but I'm still receiving several dozen each day. Fortunately, Blogger is still catching 99% of the spam I receive before it hits my blog.
ReplyDeleteThe only method for dealing with spam, other than blocking anonymous comments, is to continue to "train the Blogger filters". This has to be done from the Blogger Dashboard by marking objectionable 'anonymous' comments as spam, moving them to the spam folder and deleting them. Deleting spam directly from the blog post has no effect. Neither does deleting or marking spam in Gmail.
I've never believed that blocking Anonymous comments has a tremendous impact on folks who do want to leave comments on our blogs. There are easy, simple alternatives to getting a Gmail account. At some point, if folks want to participate in conversations they have to take some responsibility as well.
As for Al's comments about 'counting and numbers', he's the only one who ever seems to bring this up. Even in his comment here, he mentions counting and numbers four times yet claims not to be concerned about it. If so, why is he the only one who mentions numbers? Blocking anonymous comments has a negligible impact on comments left on our blogs. Anonymous comments account for less than 1% of our blog comments - it's not a factor, never has been. Al is simply wrong about that.
I used to be adamantly against blocking anonymous comments but not anymore given the huge number of spammers at work. I'll keep anonymous comments on my blog for now but given the few legitimate anonymous commenters around I'm "evolving" as the current lingo goes!
Good post, Rod on a topic of importance to everyone!
Rick, I have used the mark it as spam and leave it in that folder for a while before deleting for several years.... But when comments are too vile to even read, then something else needs to be done....
DeleteI agree, Rod. Like I said, my views on this are evolving. If Blogger doesn't get a handle on this pretty soon, I just may be following you! No argument from me.
DeleteI also gave in and blocked anonymous comments. Since I get my notifications on my phone it was going off all the time and I couldn't stand it.
ReplyDeleteI have my share of anonymous problems as well and they are mostly to old blogs, not the current one. Blogger catches almost all of them, but I also have email notification so I can tell how many I'm getting. I have a gmail account, and got rid of the ads with a program called "DoNotTrack". I think it's called something else now, but if someone googles Do Not Track they can probably find it. (My new Mac has a feature where I can turn off all tracking.) What I don't get is What do the spammers get out of this? How many people click on the links in their spam post?
ReplyDeleteBlogger filters have gone kablooie... plus I have a stalker from the ows movement who pops up once in a while.
ReplyDeleteHopefully it gets resolved soon, have a great Wednesday Rod!
Erik
I notice I get lots of anonymous too, nothing with sexual content mostly foreign however alot of it seems to be coming from a site called vampirestat.com. Does anyone know anything about them?
ReplyDelete