Comments on: Comments: Slight (automated) change in policy–and an ALA note

By: walt

walt — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 01:42:29 +0000

Steve, good point–and I turned off trackbacks/pingbacks when I started this blog, based on the spam problem.

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:59:35 +0000

Walt, and newtoblogs, you might be seeing trackbacks, which is an automated way to say “hey, I wrote something in response to this on my own blog.”

Comment number nine on my post here is a trackback (or, in this case, a pingback) from another blog:
http://stevelawson.name/seealso/archives/2007/11/bibliographic_turf.html

And comment number 10 on this post is a trackback that I left on another blog:
http://www.dancohen.org/2007/11/05/the-strange-dynamics-of-technology-adoption-and-promotion-in-academia/

That said, there is plenty of spam like newtoblogs describes that tries to look innocuous, and there is also trackback spam. Fun, isn’t it?

By: walt

walt — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:42:21 +0000

newtoblogs: I address that directly at the start of this post. It appears to be a way to get the desired URL more attention (since a blogger doesn’t have to do anything here to link to this blog–that’s a unilateral action).

As far as I’m concerned, it’s spam.

In fact, I would have been inclined to moderate your comment as spam (pseudonymous, seems to miss what I’m saying), except for one thing: You don’t provide a URL, so I can see no way in which it works as spam. (Maybe somebody wiser can inform me?)

By: newtoblogs

newtoblogs — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:14:21 +0000

Walt, since you bring up comments, I’ve wondered about some comments on some blogs which seem to be just a way for that blogger to link to your blog. They don’t actually comment on the post, they just say something like, Walt says…and list the title or first sentence of the post. Is that needed or considered spam? Just wondering if you and yours know.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:51:01 +0000

Yay that was my suggestion! Way to go taking of the training wheels Walt, I hope it works out for you. ALA’s website was also half-broken for a lot of yesterday so it’s possible there was weirdness resulting from that. When I was a member I did it at the low-income level which was fine for me but I think Library Support Staff is also okay. As you know, no one checks unles you say you are a student, so this is more of an ethical quandary than anything else.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:37:44 +0000

Oh. Sorry. Just me not reading closely.

Hmmm. Maybe I best go install this as I had literally close to 500 already in the last 24 hours, which is a good 10-25 times average.

By: walt

walt — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:51:16 +0000

Mark, Maybe I wasn’t clear: The spam was from before I installed the plugin–so it has to be coincidence. On the other hand, 32 spamments, all trapped by Spam Karma 2, isn’t bad for a full day.

By: Mark

Mark — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:15:07 +0000

Walt, I think many of us on LISHost have been getting especially nailed by spam lately and today has been particularly bad. I have not, yet, installed that plugin and also have had far more spam today than ever before. So I’m guessing it is coincidence.