Well, I'm a little bit more upset than I am annoyed, but that's beside the point. Why? Up until this past night (April 14th), I hadn't had very many problems with the comments left on this blog. Of course, I've had to delete a couple of comments before, but that was due to those comments being more spam than anything else. The comment left last night on my "A Sad Day In History" post was a long bizarre rant that included swear words and offense comments against many groups, and I felt that I had to delete the comment. So, as a result, I've changed the settings on the comments, and comments will now be moderated. Also, people will not be able to post anonymously anymore because of what this person posted.
To be honest, I really didn't want to change my settings since I've mainly had positive and constructive comments left on my blog, but I can not just allow someone to hijack the comments column on my blog and use it as a forum for his or her rants. ( That person can just as easily create a blog and post his thoughts there.) I just wanted to let everyone know in case anyone posts a comment on one of my ones, and wonders why it might not be posted right away. More than likely a delay in posting will mostly be due to not having a chance to approve the comment right away.
I realize that this doesn't sound very nice. I'm sorry. (You can tell that I'm not happy about this situation, can't you?)
I must say, though, that I still welcome comments. Any suggestions and comments are still and will always be welcome. Thanks!
Posts
Indiana Genealogical Society blog
17 years ago
7 comments:
Jessica
I had the same problem - but I've always modified the comments on my blog - just too many freaks and not enough circuses if you ask me.
I did some research and it seems that periodically this person will target one blog and then many of the other blogs listed on that blog's roll or blog list.
It is frustrating but I did some research by putting the first line of the commenter's rant into Google. Other bloggers had the same problem.
One blogger mentioned that there is a way to capture the commenter's IP address and then send an email to that person's internet provider to have their access shut down due to abusive language, etc. - basically violating the ISP's terms of conduct.
Here is the link:
http://www.statcounter.com/
It is a free program and you can then see all the IP addreses for visitors.
The nice thing is, you take the HTML code and place in a widget on your page but you can make it invisible so visitors don't see it. Sort of like being in stealth mode!
Now granted, the freak might be hiding behind a proxy address which means nothing will help identify them.
Thomas
Hi, Jessica,
Sounds like you got spammed by the same bot I did. It hit both my AnceStories and my AnceStories2 blogs. I have set up all my blogs so that I have to approve comments, not just because of spam like this, but also to prevent a real person from saying something rude or offensive that might reflect badly upon my blogs. It's the safest way.
Hi Thomas and Miriam,
Thank you for your comments. I didn't think of doing a google search, but you are right: this person is spamming many blogs. Hopefully, this person will never try this again, but next time, his or her comment will not get published.
Hi!
It's such a shame that that we have to worry about and deal with such disrespectful and nasty behavior. Unfortunately, I learned this lesson a couple years ago on an old blog I had, and I was also initially upset about having to moderate comments and block anonymous postings. I had begun using StatCounter at that time, as Thomas mentioned above, and was able to nip a few in the bud, so to speak!
You have an awesome and enjoyable blog, don't let them get you down!!
Cheers,
Elizabeth :-)
Hi Jessica,
I got hit by the same guy last night but I had comment moderation so I
deleted the email. Lucky me,I got two
of them from him, so I got to delete two!
I trust my fellow geneabloggers but it's because of people like him that
I felt it necessary to use the moderation function.
JESSICA, The same multi-paged rant was sent to two of my blogs. I've always used comment moderation and, therefore, the comments were never seen at Hill Country --- I rejected the comments.
I think any publisher of a blog should use comment moderation. You are wise to change to that option in my opinion. Because I moderate comments, I allow anonymous comments along with the signed ones.
TERRY
Jessica,
Even though my blow allows some automatic posts, I still receive a notice about every single one of them so I can delete if necessary. My blog provider has some nifty tools that automatically blocks curse words, and it allows me to block a specific IP address from ever posting in the future.
Don't feel badly about not providing automatic posting--it won't decrease the number of "normal" folks who will post a comment.
Janice
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