Life As An Itinerant Artist

Stories and anecdotes from fifteen years on the art show circuit. 

Spam, ham and how to tell the difference

Lately there have been a few comments made here that could conceivably be construed as real comments, and not spammers looking for another site to link to. It looks to me like the spammers are getting cleverer with the wording of completely non-related comments posted merely to get a link back to some crapola site selling penis drugs or weight loss.

We all know the definition of Spam — it’s unwanted junk that clutters our inbox, and now it’s starting to clutter our blog posts as well. Ham, according to Akismet, a well-known spam-blocker, is a comment that is mistaken for Spam. Comments are always welcome on the blog, especially if they relate to the article being discussed. While comments like, “Really love your content, going to follow your example” may be nice for the ego, in my definition these fall into the “Spam” category, not the “Ham” category. And since I’m the moderator here, I get to say which is which.

I’m only going to say this once: if you want me to approve your comment rather than sending it permanently to spam hell, then say something worth repeating. Make some constructive criticism. Compliment the work. Add your own thoughts. But don’t just expect your silly little automated bot links to be posted automatically. It ain’t gonna happen. Sorry.

Buh-bye.

May 11, 2010

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