Stop the Spam

I want to apologize to my regular commenters (or is it commentors? maybe commentators?)... anyway, I want to apologize to all who comment that I've had to add a word verification feature to my comment section.

When I started my blog, I wasn't sure if I wanted to even moderate my comments. I went through a lot of internal struggle and doubt but, in the end, I'm glad I decided to moderate. Yet even though I've moderated my comments for so long, I never saw the need to add a word verification. Honestly, I've always hated doing it myself on other sites and didn't think it was something that was really necessary. Boy, was I wrong. The simple fact of the matter is that I have been so bombarded with spam lately that I'm left with no other choice.

I guess that now that my blog has been getting some steady traffic, it has attracted the attention of spammers. On a good day, I might get less than a dozen. On other days, I get 20-30. It's crazy. They cover the entire spectrum of interests, too: there are links to porn sites, payday loan companies, male enhancements products, online gambling, and knock-off handbags. It's not like these things can't be found by anyone interested in looking; why do they have to spam me?

The spam presents several problems. Some of them are not being caught by the spam filter and sit in my queue for moderation. I have to sift through the spam to find the legitimate comments to publish. It's more than annoying. What's worse is when legitimate comments get flagged as spam (usually because they include a link) because they risk getting lost in an even bigger file of spam.

Another unfortunate consequence of this regular spam is that it's skewing my stat-count. Some of these spammers are visiting every day and visiting multiple posts. They're not here to read my blog but only to peddle their garbage. If I want an accurate count of my visitors who are likely to read my blog, I need to deter spammers from visiting. Hopefully, once they encounter the word verification, they'll stop visiting.

So, I apologize again. Please keeping visiting and commenting.