My spam filter has been very zealous lately, and if your comment doesn’t go through please email it to me and I’ll find out what happened, make the change and get it posted.
Due to incredible amounts of spam — I’ve now had 115,000 spam comments dince December — I have had to add certain words to the list that could cause problems for some commenters, like Poker, Blackjack and Incest and many others. Also, I had no choice but to add the drug Cialis. Unfortunately, if you try to type the word “Socialist,” the comment will be blocked as it contains the letters “cialis.” Also, if you put in more than 5 URLs it’ll be blocked.
Thanks for being accommodating and sorry for the inconvenience.
Update: Schticky, you just tried to post two comments and they were blocked — please email them to me!
Oh, and a special note to the spammers: Burn in hell, motherfuckers.
1
By Anonymous
” if you try to type the word “S-o-c-i-a-l-i-s-t,” the comment will be blocked as it contains the letters “c-i-a-l-i-s.” ”
Sounds like you need a new spam filter…
April 10, 2005 @ 2:49 pm | Comment
2
By richard
The software itself is great. I added the word c-iali-s because I was getting so many hundreds of spam comments from different URLs, there was no other way to contain it. Same with “p-oke-r.” There’s no way around it.
April 10, 2005 @ 2:57 pm | Comment
3
By Keir
I’ve tried unsuccesfully to get an answer from hotmail, so I pose this to you:
Why is it that I get NO junk mail from yahoo (not one iota) but my junk box gets so full that I have no space left for students’ work? What has yahoo got that hotmail doesn’t? And I don’t even have the option of blocking specific senders but have to constantly ‘report’ each instance of junk mail. If it says VGRA, obviously it’s spam; I can’t but think hotmail is simply encouraging this spam and is geting money from it somehow.
By the way, my girlfriend last week gave me 250mb of space for hotmail (instead of my previous 2): go into user contat details and change your location to Florida. And then do something else. Ummmm……. well, I’ve given you the first part…
April 10, 2005 @ 4:34 pm | Comment
4
By richard
I, too, find Yahoo infintely better at spam control than Yahoo. I also opened a gmail account a few weeks ago and haven’t received any spam at all. I would drop hotmail altogether.
April 10, 2005 @ 4:50 pm | Comment
5
By Gordon
I’ve got a few gmail account invites left for anyone interested.
Just drop me a line and if you’re nice, you might get one 🙂
April 10, 2005 @ 7:19 pm | Comment
6
By garnwraly
Yeah, I have a few gmail invites too, around 50 (what’s the point of not opening up registration now…)
April 11, 2005 @ 3:31 am | Comment
7
By vaara
Richard: I fully concur with your last sentence.
I probably shouldn’t tempt the fates by saying this, but I’ve never had a single spam comment (trolls are, of course, another matter). However, the server on which my site is housed is under constant attack by email, comment, and (my personal favorite candidates for eternal residence in a fiery pit) referrer-log spammers. In fact those scu-mbags* bring the server to its knees several times a week.
*I as-sume** c-u-m is one of the forbidden naughty words.
**And a-s-s too.
April 11, 2005 @ 8:50 am | Comment
8
By richard
I couldn’t block the A word because it’s part of so many other words, like assume and assist. Words that I know commenters will use a lot I didn’t block – only the more exotic words that tend to come only from spammers, like “enlarge-ment” and “pic-s” and “levitr-a.” Otherwise, no one would ever be able to post a comment.
Banned words that have been blocked the most on my site are:
pok-er
black-jack
casi-no
hol-d-em (the card game – what a nightmare)
viag-ra
and a host of gross obscenities
I’m hoping the 9-year prison sentence handed out last week to a spammer will scare some out of the business, but most of them, I hear, are based in Eastern Europe and, yes, China.
April 11, 2005 @ 10:04 am | Comment
9
By schtickyrice
Thanks for the heads up richard. Unfortunately I type my messages directly into the comment window when I post so whatever is lost is lost. Anyhow, it’s just as well as I’m sick of the whole Japan bashing thread. Such unrestrained acts are signs of weakness, not strength. Imagine the impact if the protestors had held a candlelight vigil in front of the Japanese embassy. Enough said.
April 11, 2005 @ 5:57 pm | Comment
10
By John
Richard,
There is another way. Since p0ker and cia|is spammers’ websites usually have the words “p0ker” or “cia|is” in them with some other words, hyphenated, I’ve found banning the following terms can be quite effective against spam without blocking wanted comments:
-p0ker
p0ker-
-cia|is
cia|is-
“H0ldem” on the other hand, can safely be blocked as is.
April 11, 2005 @ 10:24 pm | Comment
11
By richard
John, thanks for the tip. I’ll try it.
April 12, 2005 @ 7:56 am | Comment
12
By vaara
schtickyrice: You should always do a Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C in the comments window before posting. That way you can paste your comment back into the window if it fails to post.
Or, open Notepad and write your comment there first, then paste it into the comments window.
April 12, 2005 @ 12:40 pm | Comment
13
By schtickyrice
thanks for the tip vaara.
April 14, 2005 @ 6:10 pm | Comment