April 3, 2013 - Goodbye Anonymous

I really hated to do it, but comments from "Anonymous" finally wore me down.  I was getting 15-20 comments at a time from the s-e-x-c-a-m person, along with several others, some really nasty ones that I just didn't care to read through.  It was either block "Anonymous" or put the dreaded word verification back on, and you all know how I hate word verification.  I'm sorry that it also blocks a few valued readers/followers.  Blogger used to be so good at removing spam, but it's been very lax this past month or so.

*My dear Frank from VA, I'm so glad you figured out how to create an ID that allows you to comment!  I hope others follow suit.

36 comments:

  1. I've wondered sometimes if some of the Anonymous comments I get (and delete) are from students practicing their English. That would be OK with me if I knew that for sure, if what was said had anything at all to do with the actual post.

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    1. Dianefaith, some are just the same rather undecipherable comments copied and pasted word for word, but many are just plain pornographic. The recent ones are almost all from the same website.

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  2. Same here, and other bloggers are getting hit, too.

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    1. Loretta, I think Google blogger is letting us down. First they kill Google Reader, now their spam filter doesn't seem to be working. I hope they don't take away our free blogs next!

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  3. That's a really good idea! I've been getting a bunch of those spam comments lately and they are just so annoying.

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    1. Kaytee, annoying is right! I've always moderated my comments, but the recent spam is making that a ridiculously difficult task.

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  4. I'm getting it too, tho randomly. How did you block it ? (Technotard here...)

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    1. Akannie, click on "Design" at the top of your blog page, then in the left column click on "Settings". On that page, scroll down the left column to "Posts and comments". Under "Who can comment" check the option "Registerd User - includes open ID".

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  5. ACK! I don't blame you for getting rid of the anonymous. I know some blogs allow you to type your email in to verify that you are not a bot, but that is annoying, too. Nothing is perfect, but if you are getting that much spam - it's got to go!

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    1. Barbie, I tried different comment formats, but none of them allowed me to just block anonymous. I know I've seen some pop-up comment boxes that let you enter just your name, but none of those showed up as long as I had anonymous blocked.

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  6. I did the same thing a few days ago. I was getting so annoyed at how many got through the spam blocker. Sometimes they're sneaky too. I got one a while back that was basically just three words with an ellipsis...and the spam link was in the ellipsis.

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    1. Alison, it's too bad when a few rude people cause so many problems for the rest of us. I saw one the other day that supposedly lead to a YouTube video, but I always check the URL, and sure enough it went to a website with a similar, but very different name. It wasn't youtube dot com, it was something like you dot tub dot com!

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  7. And they say gardeners are no fun. Our gardens are full of you-know-what. . . Yep, block away!

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    1. Stefaneener, I know my garden is full of it ;-)

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  8. It seems like a lot of people are getting spammed a LOT lately, good riddance Anonymous!

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    1. Yep, Erin. Unfortunately, I have several nice readers who comment as Anonymous. I'd hate to lose them.

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  9. Hi Granny, I promise I won't do it any more, :)

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  10. I have been getting anonymous ones too. Don't like them. Will have to see if we can block them too. Thanks. Nancy

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  11. I had to do the same a few months ago. The comments were appearing on some really old posts. It was frustrating me to have to watch out for it, so I decided to block Anonymous too.

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    1. Rachel, I put up with it long enough, but when I got ten from the very same website in one day, and it was the same one that had been sending 3-4 a day for the past couple of weeks, I decided enough was enough.

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  12. I did the same thing a few weeks ago. I had fun reading some of those comments from people who obviously never read my blog or even the post they commented on. I especially enjoyed the ones that were translations from other languages. I wondered if other people had the same over-abundance of spam comments.

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    1. Langela, I think most of them are translations from other languages. Whatever they are, they are annoying. Like telemarketers. For a while, the national do not call registry really helped, but now they always find ways to get around that.

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    2. Blocking anonymous users has stopped the spam completely for me. Hope it does the same for you.

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  13. I don't know if Akismet is available for Blogger or not. Since Feb.15th to date Akismet has stopped 771 spams. I never seen one of them. John

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    1. Never heard of it, John. Hopefully banning anonymous will stop the spam, if not I'll definitely check on it.

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    2. I know what you mean about the Anonymous comments. I resent the ones who think that I will let the comment through if they tell me how much they like my blog in such non-specific term I can't tell what they like about it. I really enjoy deleting them. I doubly resent it when I see the embedded link to some commercial site. If I start getting enough such to be really annoying I will have to block anonymous. I figure that if I can't use my name or handle I really don't have any business commenting.

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    3. MaryContrary, my sentiments exactly! However, I do think Blogger could make it a bit easier to comment by giving the option to type in your name or handle without being a "registered user". I have seen it on some blog comment pages, but it doesn't seem to be an option on my blog. I've played with every setting available to me, to no avail.

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  14. It has been a lot of spam lately. I wonder why the uptick. Its ok though... Im not the anonymous type. I prefer my shenanigans to be fully out in the open, gran!

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    1. And I'd bet you are full of shenanigans, Cloud!

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    2. What else would I do with my time all day? I mean. Really? ;)

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  15. That's terrible that you had to address that, I know it's tough for me to remember my password as I rarely use my google account

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    1. Gracie, I hated to have to resort to it, but it sure has been nice not having to wade through any spam! It was really getting uncontrollable.

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