Spam and comments
Back in November, I wrote about how, since the beginning of October, I’d been receiving a hugely increased amount of spam comments. You’ll be pleased to know that this has continued, and I’m today running at 32,373 spam comments – up from 3,000 at the beginning of October.
That averages out somewhere between 250 and 300 spam comments a day, which means that I’m no longer checking my Defensio quarantine for legitimate comments that have slipped through the net; I’m not spending time wading through adverts for strange sexual practices or cheap prescription meds just to find that there aren’t any real comments in there anyway. So, if you have written a real comment since the beginning of October and it hasn’t appeared on the blog, submit the comment again and then use the contact form to tell me about it, and I’ll keep an eye out for it.
Actually, it’s probably a good time to just recap the comments policy for The New Wolfs Howl, so that we all know where we are:
All new commenters are moderated: in other words, if you haven’t commented before, your comment will be held for administrator (me, in other words) approval. Once approved, all future comments you make with the same name and email address will be automatically approved.
Anonymous comments are not allowed: you must enter a name (it doesn’t have to be your real name, it can be your internet name) and email address. This is to try and keep the trolls out.
Be nice: you don’t have to agree with me or anyone else that comments on a post, but let’s not resort to silly name calling, shall we?
Finally, please note that – even if automatically approved – I do reserve the right not to publish your comment. Should that occasion arise (it never has so far), I’ll email you and let you know why and perhaps ask you to re-submit your comment in a re-worded form.
And I think that’s it.
Spam
Apparently, it’s the season for spam. What you see above is Defensio’s graph of the total spam comments received at The New Wolfs Howl. As you can see, since the first week in October the total number has climbed by about 10,000. It used to be that I got maybe 10 or 20 spam comments a day; now I’m getting 200 or 300.
Luckily for me, Defensio is an excellent spam filter and I can rely on it to pick up all the crap for me.
Wolfs Helpers
