I've had an outbreak of spam comments at WDIK? lately. There was a string of obvious spam about musical instruments for sale, so I added the word "yamaha" to the banned word list. Promptly after that I was besieged by unscrupulous plumbers so I had to do the same thing with "faucet." (In TypePad go to Control Panel then Site Access to ban words.) That put an end to most of it, but I suspect I'll have to continue to ban certain words on a regular basis. (Meanwhile, anyone who mentions "yamaha" or "faucet" in a comment will be flagged. Apologies to motorcycle enthusiasts and my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Faucet.)
This morning, a more insidious spam method showed its ugly face. Someone named "jackee" posted a comment on a recipe for Three Mushroom Risotto. She supposedly tried it and liked it, but used red wine instead of white. I immediately posted an encouraging reply, as I tend to do, then thought "hmmm...." I checked the link attached to the name: Yep, a website that sells wine. But still: jackee could be a real person who tried the recipe and just happened to sell wine. (Yes, I know, one of us is born every minute.)
So I checked my stats at Sitemeter, and discovered someone from an IP address in Karachi had Googled the string: "Name required + typepad.com + blogs + white wine". Obviously someone, in this case some marginal English-speaking computer-wielding Pakistani, had been hired to spam blog posts that mentioned wine. (Teresa has a few comments that thoroughly suss this poorly paid occupation.)
I decided to see if anyone else had been spammed using the same Google search, and sure enough, at Chez Pim I found "jackee" had left two comments. Seems she did a lot of cooking last night, with, what else, white wine. There was also a comment at another site, proclaiming the joys of white wine and high tech gadgetry. (I prefer red wine with my high tech gadgetry, but what do I know?)
I deleted "jackee's" comment and my reply, regretting I'd been taken in for even a second by an evil, albeit underpaid, spammer.
I don't want to get ugly, and start moderating comments, or requiring a TypeKey account. I hate sites that make me remember my Blogger account, since I signed up long ago and can never remember which of my creative names and passwords I used. (And I know they use Google now, but that's even worse, since I have several Google accounts associated with other ventures.)
From now on, anyone who posts a comment linking to a site that sells something, unless it's someone I know and something I endorse, will be considered a spammer, and not only will I delete your comment, but I'll also put a curse on you and your nether regions that will make you wish you'd never learned to type. (I can do this, you know. Just ask Tony in Chicago.)
