Lately I’ve noticed some sneaky bastard(s) Spammer has been posing as regular commentors and trying to post comments with their names, but using an alternate URL. A couple of you have noticed and caught this as well, and I would encourage everyone to help me keep an eye out for this kind of thing in the future.
You’ll see in the example that not only are they using one of my frequent commentor’s names, they are guessing at another commenter’s e-mail address (it’s not the right one… so don’t worry) to try to really fool me – In this case, BradDet’s!
Now, the only way I caught this was that I happen to know that 3GP’s URL is http://www.mv3gp.com/, and Peter B’s URL is http://aesedra.com/wp/. But if I hadn’t caught it, the average reader wouldn’t have, and it would have simultaneouly transported people who clicked on their names to a Spam site and slandered the comment author in one fell swoop.
So, if you comment here regularly please help me keep an eye out for these fake comments. And if you run your own blog please be aware that this is going on. If it’s happening to me, it may be happening to you too. Incidentally, the way to stop it is to put the offending URLs into your MODERATE words in the OPTIONS, DISCUSSION tab in WordPress.
It also goes to show why actively moderating comments is so important to the overall health of a web site.
Hi John,
Just read this now ! It missed my radar cuz it wasn’t tagged with philosophy :-)
Tks for the link by the way !
I’m glad you figured out it wasn’t me. Hmm..Do you think they just guessed an email address?
I’ve noticed that on some other blogs that I comment on, sometimes I’m getting thread comment emails even though I’ve never made a comment, I wonder if someone is doing this on other blogs that I comment on too and using my actual email address and subscribing to the threads. This is really scarry
Thanks again, and to anyone else involved in helping figure this out.
they are getting sneaky.. I’m surprised. They must have no life.
Yeah, it might have a negative effect, but then again, you could let anyone comment without URL. To leave your site, you would need to register. That seems fair.
I don’t like those spammers too. Although I run plugins, it’s just a waste of time trying to get rid of them instead of reading comments. Registration sometimes does not work as readers (specially the initimidated ones) feel like it’s too cumbersome to register just to be able to post.
That is a really good point, and I am surprised that is allowed.
I still think registering to comment is the way to go though.
Kim:)
The solution is that wordpress should not allow a guest to use a registered users nickname, I had this in mind long time ago, never had the time to write a plugin for it though…
Even Asikmet can’t catch this kind of spam… Hm, you could make your visitors register in order to post comments but it could create a negative effect… Your choice man :)
S.
It’s because this site was posted on a popular forum (but no linked, so you wont see it in referrers) as a PR8 site that links to top commentators. A PR8 link is very valuable, so free ones are very good for people with small, spammy sites.
Derek,
Yes, I believe you did. Though I was already on to their little scheme even before you told me, and this is why I thought it would be beneficial to let everyone know they should help keep an eye out.
John
Yes, I think most regular commentors are logged in… but I think most of my regular readers never actually comment. This is why it’s important to me that the system not show ads on the first week or so after an article is published. That will prevent the regular readers from having to see the ads because the ads are only present on archived postings.
John
Well, moderating comments is a double edged sword. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine the motivation behind a comment, but other times it’s pretty obvious. Especially if they use Keywords for names and commercial URLs.
Also, by reading every single comment I get as much satisfaction from this blog as all of you guys. I work pretty hard on the content, but I never know what you guys are going to say about it! So that is my special surprise each day – even if I don’t always have time to respond.
And I’m glad you like the edit feature. I thought that would be a big hit. You’ve got 15 minutes after posting to edit things in case you made a mistake or just changed your mind.
John
I think it’s a good idea, aren’t most the regulars logged in when they comment anyways. ?
Sometimes that’s worth it though :) The worst thing about running a blog is having to analyze comments and wondering whether the motivations of the commenter were simply to comment, or more to get their link out.
Wow! Just noticed the new “click to edit” feature! I was hoping for that, having noticed a few spelling/grammar issues before, only seconds after posting!
What dirty, rotten scumbags! Gosh, now I’m sorry I didn’t say anything, John – about a week ago, I noticed that someone had looked like they were quoting part of what I said, and then didn’t quote or comment further. So they just used part of my text, like Derek is saying.
I thought someone accidentally hit ‘add comment’ before they were through. Now I’ll for sure have my eagle eyes on that kind of crap!
Did I e-mail you about this awhile ago? I think that I did…in any case it’s good that you found it out!
Haha and I just looked at that post and see that they actually took the text from my comment. That’s amusing.
How about making it mandatory to register to comment?
Wouldnt that eliminate this?
It might keep some folks from commenting though… Double Edged sword…
Kim:)