Daily, I go into my dashboard, to see who has posted a comment and on which post, because I get a variety of comments left on legacy posts and this is the only way to do a quick sweep to be able to find them all and to respond, as I do to all who comment.
It is also a good way to pick up spammers, who like to tag onto legacy posts in the hope that they pass the blogger undetected.
Anyway, I have just done my daily check and have 2 legitimate comments on my last post (thank you) and TWENTY NINE! Spam comments by someone (or a bot?) called Dramacool, sitting on my Christmas 2023 post.
I am only posting this, so that bloggers are minded to check back into their own blogs;
Just go into DESIGN on your dashboard at the top right of your blog and then click on COMMENTS.
You can deal with the spam by clicking on the comment BUT NOT ON THE LINK IN THE COMMENT and then marking it as spam.
I am surprised that the Google software, which seems to have been quite good recently has allowed so many repeat episodes from a single spammer that has links embedded on every entry.
I am not keen on moderation and I don’t even know if moderation deters a spammer or whether they still post anyway and you still have to manually clear it all out (can anyone tell me?).
I am minded to treat this as a one-off occurrence and just see how we go, but I am close to being minded to turn to moderation, which I think is like having a bath with ‘yer wellies on’ or just turning comments off altogether, if I am still left with having to clear the stuff, though the latter does leave something of a soulless blog.
I also note that my viewing figures from one part of the world, who have never really been significant in my viewing list, has gone through the roof, so maybe there is a link between the two matters ….. or perhaps I have a whole new wargame fan base that just wants to read every legacy post I have ever made :-)
Anyway, I am only posting this to alert other bloggers who may want to check that their earlier posts have not been targeted. We all get a bit of spam, that is just part of what we do, but 29 spam hits in one straight go is exceptional and this poster / bot may prove to become a menace.
Fortunately, I am playing a face-to-face section of the Austerlitz battle tonight … so calm has already been restored :-)
EDIT - Another 29 spam posts from the same spammer, but on a different post (25th March).
Resource Section.
My sister webspace ‘COMMANDERS’ showcases the various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and gives a flavour of where current projects are up to. Link.
I have little faith in Bloggers spam filter I am constantly having to rescue regular contributors comments and even my replies from spam.
ReplyDeleteHi Phil, yes, i had forgotten about rescuing comments, one of my regular comments does end up from time to time in the spam catcher …. For whatever reason is a mystery.
DeleteNorm, I have moderation turned on and it does seem to reduce the amount of spam although some does still get through. It seems to go in phases though and it has been particularly bad for the last 6 months or so!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ian, so from that perspective, I may as well leave mine alone as it is and just do the daily checking etc. Either that or go to no comments and that just seems a sad direction to be ‘pushed’.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the warning and advice.
ReplyDeleteHi - no problem, it will be interesting if any others have ‘met’ the same spammer. They seem to move around within communities.
ReplyDeleteNorm, I only moderate comments after a post has aged four days. I do not typically see much SPAM coming into my blog. For those that do, more often than not, Blogger actually catches them and identifies them properly as SPAM. The odd, legitimate comment gets trapped in the SPAM filter occasionally but since I check regularly, these can be quickly approved and the comment is published. I know that my comments sometimes end up in another blogger's SPAM filter, yours included!
ReplyDeleteHi Jonathan, they do indeed. In fact in the last post, you made two separate comments, the first got through, the second went into spam, which seems very strange, but it proves that it is worthwhile to actually check comments on dashboard to pick such things up.
ReplyDeleteI can go for weeks without spam and then the odd one crops up, usually the same name. I have an old post on Sci-Fi and for whatever reason, that attracts them like a magnet.
This most recent bout of 29 comments is off the scale compared to what I have previously experienced. Hopefully the spammer was passing through …. Who knows!
I've had Moderation turned on for years, after a spate of SPAM posts. I rarely get them now, maybe one in a hundred comments or even less. Now and then I have to rescue comments from the SPAM folder, but it is erratic and with no rhyme nor reason to it. Much better than being bombarded like you were today, ditto Stew of A Loss of Lead & Wealth fame.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, it seems no difference then whether I moderate or simply go in daily to my dashboard and manage things, the latter being something that I prefer for the instantaneous aspect of commenting and for follow-on posters to see all previous comments. It was all quite bearable until Mr. 29 turned up!
ReplyDeleteI have comment moderation turned on and check any comments that have been made as often as I can. I tend to get waves of spam comments (usually from the Indian sub-continent and Far East), which I record as spam (hopefully so that Blogger will pick up future comments this spammer makes). I then delete the spam.
ReplyDeleteAll the best,
Bob
Hi Bob, I always thought that Blogger was meant to block posts with active links …. But I must have dreamt that one! 🙂 I guess because blogs generally have lists of blogs they follow that once a spammer hits a blog, it is very easy for them to move between blogs in that community.
ReplyDeleteI will see if this spammer comes back and more interestingly to what degree the spammer visits our community.
Thanks for this post Norm....it reminded me to check and there was one comment in my spam folder...a legit one from Steve J....not the first time this has happened to Steve...and Mr Freitag is also a regular visitor to my "sin bin", for some reason! 😀
ReplyDeleteHi Kieth, I get the same.
DeleteIt does make me wonder what OTHER blogs Steve and Jon are frequenting...??!! 😆
DeleteI also woke this morning to like 30 spam comments. Took about 3 mins to delete them all. Spammer has good taste at least. Only the best blogs get ‘em. 😀
ReplyDeleteYes, some of us are not worth the effort to SPAM!
DeleteMe neither Jonathan 😂
DeleteJonathan / Ben - then that is the spammers loss :-)
DeleteDon’t feel bad. Not like spammers actually read the posts. I probably pick up all manner of unwarranted attention due to my unsavory internet search history. 😀
DeleteAh, that explains my recent batch🙂
DeleteHi Stew, yes, I sent the spammer to you!🙂 I mean, why should I have all the fun!
ReplyDeleteStew was trying to increase his visitor count a while back, so can't really complain too much!
ReplyDeleteWhose complaining? I was looking for discount tire repair and window treatments. 😀
DeleteI shall look at my spammer in a new light and thank them for their support …… a tick is a tick :-).
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, re checking history, this morning I looked at my list and a poster has responded to a 2021 post and I have been able to reply, without the dashboard, I would never have caught that.
My spammer is conspicuous by their absence this morning …. I’m missing them already!
I get loads of spam on old posts like you, but the worst culprit is me! For some reason I get at least 10 of my comments on my blog placed into my spam box. It's absolutely crazy??
ReplyDeleteHi Ray, I have been getting a comment problem that when I hit the PUBLISH button, it takes a few seconds and then comes back as an error and does not post the comment. The last time this was happening, it went through on the 4th attempt. The problem has raised its head again and now it goes through on the 2nd attempt, but there is no pattern to it. Good old Blogger!
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm for the thoughts, I have noticed the spam comments seem to disappear automatically now , something in the system I think. Occasionally I also get the publish issue which I think is an update problem in the system.
ReplyDeleteMatt, there must be some conflict issues when blogger updates and our various operating systems have yet to catch up.
DeleteLate to the party on this post, Norm. I have comment moderation, but it seems the day I turn it off, I am hit with a deluge of spam comments in many of my posts and am forced to turn it back on. I would much rather not have moderation on but my blog seems to attract these folks and their robots.
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, I wish I fully understood how these things work, but I think some of it must be bot activity. There are also some months when I get crazy viewing figures from parts of the world that previously have not offered up large wargame audiences. Perhaps there are some keywords that I have used that get the bots twitchy!
ReplyDeleteAnother batch of 29 spam posts today from the same spammer. Looks like Google caught almost half of them, so I suspect the Google filter catches the destination link of the spammer, rather than the spammer themselves.
ReplyDeleteOh the joy of seeing so many spam posts when I checked on my 'phone! Even with comment moderation on, some still get through for approval, but rarely so. Luckily for me (in one sense) I get so few comments it's not a bind to approve them. Even so, sometimes my comments appear as spam and yesterday I had a comment from 2016 for approval!
ReplyDeleteHi Steve, the ‘approval’ method seems quite good. I got another raft of the same 29 spam comments today! I’m really surprised that more people are not seeing this spammer, but if they are not checking older posts, then they won’t.
ReplyDeleteI monitor regularly and incoming SPAM on new and old posts is sparse and almost non-existent. Knock on wood!
DeleteJonathan, if you recall, some time ago, you seemed to be one of the few bloggers that Norton had tagged - i wonder if there is a correlation, if so the bigger question is why. At the moment, you are just one of two bloggers who get caught in the Google spam net and even then it is very occasional, so there is another why? that sits there.
Deletei think I will just play this out a little longer and see where it goes.
Hi Norm, I must admit I have used comment moderation from the start, you can set it up to ping you an email to notify that a comment is awaiting moderation, and I rather look forward to those emails coming in after I have made a new posting! Easy enough to mark any rogue comments as Spam - I have had relatively few spammers ( only about 15 in 4 years ), perhaps because of the moderation? Some have been bizarrely amusing, my favourite so far being the one inviting me to "Find the best Silage Machines price! silage machine for sale in Pakistan"...
ReplyDeleteGood silage machines are hard to find!
DeleteHi David, I would be very interested in the silage machine :-)
ReplyDeleteFrom what has been said here, I think that I would perhaps try moderation before going straight to stopping comments. I can go for quite a while without spam, but rather like buses, they can all turn up at once :-)
I had a burst of posts from Dramacool the other day… all on an older post all fortunately straight into the spam folder… all 36 of them 😳
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that since this ‘ bot’ ‘arse’ has been crashing the party the notify me function has stopped working for me…
Although it seems to still work on moderated blogs..
I wonder if anyone ever clicks on its links?
All the best. Aly
Hi Aly, Steve J moderates and he has just reported the notify problem. Sounds like Blogger is having a few problems, hopefully to be resolved.
ReplyDeleteI was amused to see that one of the many spams by Dramacool the other day was to offer a product that stopped you being interrupted by intrusive respondents!!! :-)
36 is Rubbish, I note that half of my new ones today were caught by the spam filter.
Well at least Aly's and your reply came through to my Inbox...
DeleteHopefully fixed - I have just deleted the spam comment on my spam post 🙂
DeleteHang,draw and Qauter them all I say
ReplyDeleteIt’s too good for them sir!
ReplyDelete