Monday, September 28, 2009

Dear "Sue" ...



Dear "Sue"


Please stop spamming my comments with dozens of website links. I'm going to catch them pretty much right away, so you're wasting both your time and mine.  In fact, the last two times you posted them, I happened to be online at the same time, so they were up all of oh, maybe 2 seconds. I know you were trying to sneak them in when you knew that most of the U.S. is sleeping, but you didn't know that I was a bit of a night owl did you?  So do us both a favor and just move along. Nothing to see here.


I'm pretty sure that 99.9% of my readers do not even read Vietnamese anyway.


I'm just sayin'...

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Blogging can be such a joy. It's a way that folks who love to write can express themselves and thankfully have some people read and kind of {hopefully} enjoy what you say.  {I notice a lot of us are Virgos too. Interesting.} It's also a way to connect with others if, 1) you happen to be a bit introverted or shy (which I am decidedly not), or, 2) you happen to be a work at home/stay at home mom or empty-nester, unexpectedly unemployed, semi-retired, retired or away from "the world" in some manner, which I am.

I miss working. Not solely because I loved what I did. That is true. But more so because I miss being around other people. Yes, even those who were annoying and aggravating.

I miss drinking coffee that I didn't have to make. I miss the mischievous pranks, like the rubber banded faucet sprayer which got me not once, but twice. Or finding all of the things in my office turned upside down. I miss Roger blowing bubbles over the cubicle. Or tossing paper clips over at me to break up the monotony of the day. I miss visiting in the break room and chatting with the smokers outside. I miss the Tato-Nut donuts and orange juice from Ed.  I miss the birthday cakes. I even miss the mom's coming around with the school fundraisers. I miss going out to lunch. I miss shopping at Crossroads and the Outlet Mall and Sam's Club during lunch. I miss listening to music on the way to and from work and occasionally catching a good talk show or a great sermon. Hurricane Katrina took away my long held career - but then I discovered blogging and a whole 'nother world opened up. In my pjs. Right in the comfort of my recliner.

But, as it goes... unfortunately, like the "real world," the joys of blogging are bordered by some aggravations too.  Afterall, while we're behind a keyboard, we are still dealing with the world and, with people in the world.

I have found that there are actually some people who frequent blogs that are downright hateful. And quite a few who are a bit snarky. Whatever possesses people to leave those kinds of comments is beyond me but I suppose it is an outlet for them to express themselves a bit anonymously outside of their apparently miserable lives. Although I started my blog even earlier, I've been actively blogging just about a year. And, in my last year of blogging, I've dealt with a bit of the snark. I just pray for the folks hiding behind it.

Even worse, I've dealt with blog thieves. Earlier this year, I discovered that someone had stolen recipes and photos from a multitude of food blogs - including 30 of my own recipes taken verbatim along with all of the photos associated with them and posted them on their own blog treating them as if they were their own.  That blog ignored requests from me and others for our content to be removed, and was shut down by the Google legal team.

Then a couple of months ago, it happened again with another Google blogger. This blogger, however, did remove my content, and eventually it appears, all the other content that others apparently complained about and yes, I have been watching her.  While she does still have some older content up that is not her original work, she now posts her own recipes and photos - which frankly makes her blog much more interesting anyway.

And more recently, I'm dealing with someone who is deliberately spamming my blog. They arrive from Vietnam by a direct link, which means this isn't an autobot type of spam that can be defeated with word verification. This is a real person who has my blog bookmarked in some manner and who is actually manually posting several comment spams that include dozens of links to outside websites. I suspect that as they sit down to do their dirty work, they surely have several blogs bookmarked and every couple of days they just go down the list, posting their comment spam on each post. What's crazy is that the posts are in what appears to be their native language of Vietnamese, and not even in English! What kind of sense does that make?? The only way to combat this kind of deliberate spam, is to either turn off comments altogether or to use comment moderation, which I notice quite a lot of you are using these days. Is this why?

I get tons of spam on my ISP internet email account - to the point that except for family emails that are filtered, I do not even use that email account anymore.  I get more spam in that account that involves increasing the size of a certain male body part that I do not even possess, than I can ever possibly count.

I always wonder why there is so much spam. Do people actually ever respond to that stuff? If so, why??


P.S. and Totally Off-Topic:

Elizabeth Edwards, if you are indeed using the online pseudonym Cherubim to slam that Hunter woman around the blogosphere, good for you. If you're not Cherubim, kudos to whoever you are. While men bare the responsibility for their infidelity, women who deliberately go after other women's husbands are simply The Scum of the Earth.

18 comments:

  1. Hey gal, you "almost" made me want to go back to work..."almost"...LOL!

    Sorry you've had a problem with spam...hey, you could have at least shared a recipe for spam...teehee...don't hit me!

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  2. LOL Tammy, on all accounts! Thanks for the chuckle.

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  3. I keep getting spam comments (which are, at least, in English) when I post about coupons or savings. It's the same person with the same link. I DO moderate comments, so these spam comments never even make it to the blog. Why someone would bother is beyond me!

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  4. Mary, I had a comment left on my blog a few days ago from a Sue, but my comment moderation caught it...I turned comment mod. on to be able to catch any new comments after a week cuz I was missing some on older posts.I didn't want to miss any that I needed to respond to!
    I couln't read sue's, so I deleted it- good thing, I guess?
    Hope you don't have any more trouble.

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  5. Wow! Maybe it's cuz I'm a babe to this blog thing but it blows me away that people steal stuff and just post it like it's their own. Amazing! Sorry you've had to deal with that.

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  6. I have been getting those "other language" comments/links too, so for a while I turned the captcha code on for comments. I also moderate my comments because I like to keep my blog family friendly, I can delete whatever I feel is not appropriate. If you have your email on your blog, it's easier for spam to get sent. If you write it out ad AT instead of @, it's harder to get through to them. I wrote mine on my header, but it's also in my profile so...

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  7. Hey Mary, I do the comment moderation thing too! I have found I get spam from the same people for a few days in a row, they stop for a while, and come back a week later to be denied again. I guess they must thrive on rejection!

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  8. Gracious! You are on a roll today -- a lovely, fresh-baked yeast roll, no doubt -- but all ne'er-do-wells of the ethernet BEST BETTER watch out! Go get 'em, my dear!

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  9. I sooooo know what you mean about these -spammers- who are leaving comments on our blogs. I don't know why they even bother since I have them usually deleted within minutes or at the very most a few hours.

    Perhaps you should of emailed Sue a recipe for "spam" casserole LOL

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  10. I can totally see why people are stealing your recipes and pictures -- they are yummy to look at and drool over! No one has ever taken anything from my blog (that I know about) and I'm sure it's because everything there is so dang boring!!!

    Love your blog -- love your comments -- love your recipes and especially drool over your pictures.

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  11. Sue recently visited me as well, bleh! Mrs. Edwards, I pray it is YOU!

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  12. i don't even know you but i love you...

    are you a red-head... fiesty...

    :-)

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  13. Well now you just went and kind of depressed me. Blogging is so great, but just like everything else, there are those that go and ruin it. Shame on them!

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  14. I think the name of your blog is perfect - I love it! Great blog too

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  15. I totally agree!!! SUE TAKE A HIKE!!! I got a bunch of links for football teams. Do I sound like I like football. Any who Thanks for visiting my site Mary your a fab SITS sister!!! 80)

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  16. Too bad about the spam. Makes me glad I have only four or five followers. Of course, my blog is a personal, her's-my-everyday-mundane-life blog, so....

    I did, while I was pregnant, have a couple of people who decided it was a good idea to comment on my decisions regarding such things as circumcision, rerturning to work, etc. Their comments made it pretty clear they thought I am the worst mother in America... Boo on them!

    And my mom, who at one time had 5+ blogs, is a virgo! Maybe you're on to something there!

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  17. Wow, what a bunch of crap!!! I don't know why people do that sort of thing. Losers!!!!!

    ReplyDelete

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