Thursday, October 18, 2012

A Rant: I'm Sorry But I Can't Take it Anymore!

Victorian Optician Eye Box

Okay, heaven knows I've tried to make it easier for older folks (like me) to post on my blog, I've tried to make it easier for older eyes (like mine) to maneuver the whole commenting process without yanking out whatever hair we've got left.

How? Well, by eliminating that 'wordy identification' thing that Google Blogger invented to make everyone insane. I read your complaints and I responded - you've probably noticed that I've gone to comment approval status for a couple of weeks now. BUT, here's the truth of it:  I HATE IT!!! Apparently I don't have the patience. I admire bloggers with the patience to deal with it, but I'm not one of them.

I could live with it if only I weren't constantly being BOMBARDED with emails of the most spurious sort. I mean, some of it is kind of creepy and I know it's being sent by machines who could care less about my creep intolerance, but ladies and gents, I don't like being annoyed. Not even a little bit. I especially don't like being annoyed by things that make NO SENSE - half the spam mail is unreadable so I'm assuming it's in some sort of binary code. HA! WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS? Am I seriously supposed to respond? Well, I did get one that - very politely - said the sender was really disappointed with my blog and shouldn't I do something about it. I rolled my eyes and deleted.

I know Google blocks the spam from actually reaching the blog - thank goodness - but I hate that my mail is constantly clogged with this crap.

The viagra ones, especially, bother the heck out of me because the damned machines (or whatever you call spam program/computer/what-nots) don't even know that I'm NOT SOME OLD GEEZER with locomotion problems!

See, here's the thing: SPAM MAKES NO LOGICAL SENSE. It's not at all like advertising flyers being sent to the house - flyers can be useful for wrapping fish or for tearing into bits and making alternative reality jewelry. But what on earth is the use of spam online??? WHAT IS THE POINT???

Are there people who actually interact with spam?

Anyway, long story short: I apologize to those of you who have trouble with the 'wordy identification' thing but for my own peace of mind, I am going back to it. Even though my daughter says people won't leave a comment if they have to deal with that kind of stuff from the comfort of their i-phones.

I'm sorry for that because your comments mean a lot to me. I so enjoy interacting with you guys and I like to think the enjoyment is mutual. But if it becomes too awkward for you to post a comment, I will understand if you decline to do so.

But I hope you won't.

Am I the only one with Spam Intolerance Syndrome? How do you guys handle it all?

30 comments:

  1. I don't like the word verification thing so I get a lot of spam. I tried to create filters on Gmail (like if the message has the word "viagra" send it to "spam") but it didn't work because the subjects of these awful e-mails are diverse. What I did is to create a final filter that says if the message has the sentence "Anonymous has left a new comment" it sends them to Spam. That worked better, now I just check my Blogger dashboard from time to time to see if some real "Anonymous" has left a comment :

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  2. I know so little about how you actually do blogs, but I love yours and sympathize. It should be as pleasurable to you as to us...so whatever floats your boat, Yvette....IS FINE AND DANDY WITH ME! Quirkfarms

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  3. Yvette,

    It's a hassle and there's no perfect cure. As long as there are slimy spammers out there, we will have to deal with them, unfortunately.

    I hate the word verification method also, so I decided long ago to go with comment moderation. I also have all comments bounced to my computer as email, so I can deal with them in my mail program.

    Did you handle them on the blog site?

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  4. I do not have a blog but i get constant spam of the Viagra and other male-oriented ads all of the time.

    I hate it, have no tolerance for it.

    I keep sending stuff to spam, but it turns up again.

    So, I understand it. Is there no middle ground?

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  5. Haha. Honestly, ever since I switched to Disqus, spam has not been a problem for me. I think I've gotten 2 spam comments in the last 2 moths, and they went to spam. But yes, without captcha the spam is crazy-making.

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  6. Definitely feel your "Spam Intolerance Syndrome" pain Yvette - it is a lot easier for us Wordpress users it has to be said, though I still get plenty of spam every day but it is all filtered and easy to delete.

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  7. Yvette, I actually enjoyed your post, great fun! In spite of the vexing issue of Spam Intolerance Syndrome and all that. I hope you don't mind. I have a theory: you probably get more spam comments (or mail) because of the popularity of, and number of visitors to, your blog on account of its wide range of content. I'd be lucky if I got even two spams a week and even those Blogger stonewalls. I have never used word/number verification or comment moderation and my comments are open to anonymous users as well, so it's not fair I don't get any spam! The ones I get usually tell me how I can attract more traffic to my site. They really know how to rub it in, don't they!

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  8. I know people do not like having to do the word verification, but if it keeps the spam out, and the very strange emails and comments, then I am not going to remove it.
    Sometimes the word verification is difficult to read but they always give you more attempts. I do not find them difficult, I have got used to them.
    You have just reconfirmed for me that I shall not be removing it.
    Thanks, I enjoyed your rant.

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  9. "flyers can be useful for wrapping fish or for tearing into bits and making alternative reality jewelry"

    So true! I'm with you on the spam intolerance, suffering as I do with loads of it in my email box, which Yahoo! kindly siphons off. Happily, it's trailed off in recent days...although I shall probably have to eat those words. Would that I could eat spam.

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  10. Dear Yvette - I use word verification and receive very little spam. I also have fewer readers than you, as the counter at the bottom of your page would indicate. I'm guessing that you get more spam because you also get more traffic. Not that it will assuage your grumpiness, but the spam might be a sign of blogging success!

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  11. I like this idea, Clara. Maybe I'll get my daughter to take a look and set it up for me. I'm hopeless when it comes to techno stuff. Thanks.

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  12. Dear Unknown, I hope you are not spam, you sound too nice. :)

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  13. They show up on my mail program as well, Fred. But it's such a hassle and occasionally I've deleted a real email by mistake - also it just gets confusing for me. I'm old and decrepit - remember. HA!

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  14. Kathy, I'll see what's what with Clara's suggestion. I have to check with my daughter. In the meantime, word verification is here to stay for the present. Apologies.

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  15. 'Crazy making' - exactly, Tasha. What is Disqus? I use Google Chrome.

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  16. Sergio, I hate dealing with it, that's the problem. It's icky. Ha!

    And I do have a couple of blog friends who post occasionally as 'anonymous' so they're in peril of being wiped out in a frenzy.

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  17. Hmmmmm, I never thought of it like that, Prashant. So you think the measure of spam I get is an indication of the popularity of my blog.

    I still hate it. :)

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  18. Rosemary I'm keeping it for the present unless something better comes along that's easy to deal with.

    They do give you choices which in general I have to use since half the time you can't see what the number is on the word verification thingy. I'm used to it as well. I tell you, I have more tolerance for this than I do for spam.

    Glad you and Prashant enjoyed my post. :)

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  19. Columnist: I think we're all in this together - some of us are not as easy going as we might like to be. :)

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  20. Mark, Prashant said the same thing. It helps a bit to assuage my grumpiness. But not much. :)

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  21. Yvette, you are not alone. I hate the "prove you're not a robot" stuff too. But it doesn't stop me from commenting (BTW, forgive me for not having done so for a while -- you know I love your blog). I've thought about doing the same thing. Oddly enough, I often get notices of comments on my email of these weird and gross comments, but they don't show up in the blog! Why? Who knows! Oh, and I just about busted a gut when you said "...don't even know that I'm NOT SOME OLD GEEZER with locomotion problems!"

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  22. Becky, I'm glad you got a good laugh. I kind of did too. The whole thing is comical.

    Aggravating, but comical.

    It's so nice to see you back among us, kiddo. Commenting and all. I've been slow to comment lately so I apologize for that. That'll teach me for following so many blogs - for liking so many blogs. :)

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  23. Yvette, one of the reasons why I like (and stay with) TypePad as the platform for my blog is because it seems pretty effective in dealing with spam comments. If I identify a spam comment, TypePad automatically adds the sending DNS to a "block list." There's one "black-hat" SEO company that keeps trying to spam my old posts with nonsense messages, but they rarely get through, and when/if they do, I quickly add them to the block list. As a result, knock on wood, I haven't had to go to Captcha for my blog.

    Spammers. Tar. Feather. Rail. Some assembly required.

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  24. Les, I've noticed that your 'word thingy' is slightly different from Google's, though based on the same principle.

    I'm okay as long as I have the i.d. in place.

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  25. I went back to the word verification deal because of this, Yvette. It gets old and tiresome.

    By the way, I have this Caribbean time share thing that you just can't miss on.....

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  26. Ha! Gee thanks, Kevin, but I'll pass.

    Word Verification looks like it's going to be around a while. :)

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  27. You're just too popular, Yvette! I removed the word verification thing months ago. I have such a limited readership that the spam issue is incredibly small compared to your sad deluge. I wouldn't have the tolerance to weed through it all either if I had hundreds of readers per hour, but I have less than 200 hits per day. It sharply increases on Fridays because of the link on Patti's blog, but usually its fairly low the rest of the week. I get only one or two spam messages a month sent to my email and only one fake comment managed to make it to the blog. I promptly deleted it. The rest get caught by the Blogger filters. So take the huge amount of spam as a sign of the huge amount of traffic to your blog. Trying to help you see the good amongst the bad.

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  28. I don't know, John. I still don't think those readers numbers are correct. Somehow they're mixing in my own views of the page, I'm sure of it.

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  29. I took word verification off a few months ago and regretted it from day one. I tried to put it back on, but for some reason I can't, so I'm living with it. If they hadn't had added the number, which is normally harder than hell to read, it would make the verificaiton process a lot easier.

    I've noticed my spam count gong through the roof lately, I'm getting over a hundred a day, so my email is clogged with the crap. I just delete them all without even opening them. If it says Anonymous, it's get deleted. I do scroll through the spam comments on the blog before I delete them, just in case a real commentor is in their somewhere, but that takes just a few seconds.

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  30. My blog isn't as popular as yours Ryan, so I get less spam. :)

    But still I get enough for it to be annoying.

    When I go to someone's blog and they have the wordy thing, I just reset it as many times as I have to until I can read the damn number.

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