Good morning. I'm starting this week with an explanation of why comments to our blogs are moderated (ie delayed for approval) and may take anything from minutes to hours to appear.
Moderation has two advantages. Firstly, it means we get an email for every comment, which in turn means that we read and know what readers are writing. This is important because it is sometimes so significant that it requires a change to the blog post, which is usually done on the same day.
Secondly, and primarily, it prevents spam messages. Although these are often very specific and mention Bitcoin, or being friendly with ladies from Ukraine or Thailand, sometimes the message is more generic but contains a link that other readers may click on, and be upset by what they are then led to.
As editor I very rarely followup on these although I will occasionally look at the profile of the person commenting. If they are from a specific company with an online presence, especially if they are repeated, I will spent a little time contacting the company and ask if they know what is being done in their name. Sometimes a company answers an email offering to improve the company's presence on the web by a targetted campaign or through Search Engine Optimisation. The latter improves their own website, the former attempts to get other websites to link back to the target. The quick way to do this is just to spam a load of blogs and and then the company can be told that the website has a lot of inbound links. It's not only spam, it's a scam!
The latest spam comment doesn;t fit into these categories, but I thought I'd show it anyway.
This is the email we get from Blogger:
This is the 'Billy Hunter' Blogger profile (220 people have looked at this since February):
And this is a screenshot of one of the blogs that 'Billy Hunter' runs:
Readers of this blog probably aren't interested in that, which is nothing but a very long list of search links from google sites across the globe.
And those are the reasons why comments are moderated.
Have a good week!
Oh that brings back memories of 1999 and my change of role for UK Transplant Service from "practising" Scientist ( never perfected it!) to Comms Team and Webmaster for the first version of the Authority website! Our Comms Director, Penny (not Black, or Red) had previously "done time" (20 years) in the same role for Avon and Somerset Police - Every morning, I and my opposite number at Avsom used to share the latest versions of West African fraud messages.....Eventually we received the first one incoming from Poland.....and so C21 began!!!
ReplyDeleteThe Nigerian ones, especially, were the successors to the letters that were sent. We had at least two in the Finance Dept at HMSO HQ - both with forged stamps, of course. Good postal history :-)
DeleteSince your post I got this email:
DeleteHello, my dear!
Good day to you, once again.
My name is Vivian Green, a medical doctor. I am contacting you again to confirm if you received my previous massage regarding to a Citizen from your Country, who was infected with COVID-19 and been treating in our Hospital. He Died after 9 days with difficulty in breathing. He was buried by the Government. And no address our hospital can use to locate the relatives in your Country to inform the family members about the sudden death of their love one. Hoping you will assist in this situation to help us reach the relatives if you know them?
I am the Doctor who is treating him. I have something very important He told me before his death, I would like to discuss with you privatly, since He is a Citizen from your Country.
I appreciate your quick response in this matter as soon as possible.
Thanks!