A Note about Comments

I have tried to hold off for as long as possible enabling "Word Verification" for posting comments on my blog, because I personally find those things annoying when I'm commenting on someone else's blog. In the last several weeks, however, I've come to realize the importance of Word Verification: it eliminates the posting of spam blog comments.

I used to get occasional spam blog comments, but the trickle has turned into a flood recently. It's to the point now where the great majority of comments I moderate are spam solicitations for get-rich-quick schemes or Viagra. I apologize for the extra hassle you will encounter as you post comments, but hopefully this will put an end to the spam.

BTW, one of the more interesting spam comments is the following:

"Nice post and this fill someone in on helped me alot in my college assignement. Thank you seeking your information."

I allowed a similar comment a while back, from an anonymous poster, because the post he/she was commenting on was indeed packed with information. I recall being happy that I'd helped someone with their research.

Then, last week, I got the comment mentioned abovce, misspelled word and bad grammar and all, for another post. Now, I was curious. I Googled that exact phrase, in quotation marks, and it came back with 66 appearences in the comments sections of various blogs --- including some blogs not in English. It's obviously spam, but a curious sort of spam. It isn't selling anything. Could it be a sort of Phishing marker, allowing a spammer to use Google to go back and easily identify blogs that seem very liberal about allowing comments to post --- and then target those blogs for "real" spam comment postings?

I'd be curious if anyone out there knows. If so, please post a comment. Just make sure you do the Word Verification exercise! :-)