Monday, August 19, 2013

Stamp Out SPAM




Anyone who surfs the Internet knows I'm not talking about that strange meat in a can. Unwanted, intrusive advertising fills our email folders, blog comments, and other social media outlets.

As we find ways to stamp out SPAM, spammers are getting more creative. They've discovered a way to slip by our safeguards. For the past couple of months, I've seen what look like genuine comments on my blog and my friends' blogs. If you're anything like me, I visit those who comment for the first time. The innocuous comment leads me straight to a commercial site. Bah humbug!

A lot of people hate the captchas, but they help keep spammers at bay. I'd rather take a few moments to fill one in than have the blogger forced to moderate comments.

Writers:  Have you experienced problems with spammers? How do you handle them?

Readers: How do you keep a lid on junk mail, while keeping the emails you want?

Photo Credit:  kveselyte


9 comments:

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Susan .. Spam is frustrating .. but I'd rather have comment moderation on - so at least I don't have to go through the hoops of WV ..

Then the owner of the blog can eliminate those comments that are spam - I'll do that if I need to ..

I'll put comment moderation on if it becomes too obvious - I've had my second irritation commenter - we'll see how it goes before I switch on comment moderation ..

WV is frankly a nuisance! I'll do it for this comment .. cheers Hilary

Carol Garvin said...

I'm fortunate that the Wordpress spam filter manages to recognize and remove the majority of unwanted spam from my blog comments. Some comments it holds until I can confirm and delete them, but it hasn't been a nuisance... at least, not yet. I think I'd resort to comment moderator before I'd use captchas if I needed something. I'm sorry you've been having so many bad experiences with it.

E-mail is a different kind of annoyance, although I haven't been besieged by a lot of spam there either, thanks to more filtering. I guess when we consider that much of our online activities are free to us, it's hard to complain at the advertising attempts that reach us, but so much of it is just plain offensive.

Karen Lange said...

Spam is a nuisance, that's for sure. I haven't had too many problems with it in my blog comments though. Not sure why - but I don't allow anonymous comments, so maybe that's it.

Happy Monday! :)

quietspirit said...

Hi Susan: Spam is an annoyance. On my blog, I monitor the comments I receive. I recently had two I had to delete.

JD said...

Hi, Susan:

I've always moderated my blog comments, so spam has been less of a nuisance for me. For a while however, I was getting anonymous spam comments in my "awaiting moderation" folder. So I changed my settings to disallow anonymous comments on my blog. That did the trick so I didn't have to go the Captcha route.

Wishing you a spam-free week!

Rhonda Schrock said...

My blog readers don't have to fill out those captchas, but I've chosen to approve comments before they're visible. That keeps the spam out. So far, it's working pretty well.

Jean Fischer said...

I switched from Blogger to Wordpress, and, as Carol said, their spam filter works well to catch any spam comments headed for my blogs.

I don't have many issues with email either. I stay away from gmail and yahoo mail because they seem rife with spam. Instead, I use my ISPs mail program.

Blessings, Susan!
Jean

Susan J. Reinhardt said...

Hi Janette - I don't get on social media as often during the day as I'd like. I'm concerned people would be discouraged when their comments don't appear for hours.

Hi Rhonda - Again, moderating comments is problematic for me.

Hi Jean - The gmail spam filter works okay for me. As you know, I tried to set up in Wordpress but found it difficult.

Thanks,
Susan :)

Susan J. Reinhardt said...

Hi Hilary - I'm sorry. I know the captchas are a nuisance, but I'm not on the computer often enough to handle comment moderation.

Hi Carol - Glad Wordpress is working well for you.

Hi Karen - Hmm, I'll have to change my settings.

Hi Quiet Spirit - The sneaky ones are really annoying. They look like real comments, but they take you to a commercial site.

Blessings,
Susan :)