I recently decided to remove the spam filters from comments under our articles, and do one-by-one moderation of comments. The way I have it set up, once you’ve had a comment approved, you don’t need approval for future comments.
This has been pretty manageable, since we don’t yet have a very active on-site commenting community. Most of the comments about our articles are left on our Facebook page.
But one byproduct of sifting through comments one at a time is that I’ve gotten fascinated by many of the spam comments I’ve been deleting. Some of them are so gonzo and stupid they’re entertaining to read. So I’ve decided to use my “From the Editor” category here to introduce a “Spam Comment of the Week.”
It’s hard to pick a winner, since they are all excel in their own way. Some of them are short and to-the-point, like haiku. Others seem to be frantically hammered out using a predetermined list of keywords in no particular order.
Most of them are “link spam,” where the purpose is to both get hits on their links, and to rise in google page ranks by increasing the number of incoming links to their site. Google has made algorithm changes that blunt the effect of doing that, but it hasn’t seemed to stop the spammers from trying.
This week’s winner is a marvelous stream-of-consciousness essay that seems to have been inspired by James Joyce, and written under the influence of a dangerously potent dose of LSD.
The text is a weird mush-mosh of recent news stories about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, mixed with references to Trump. The links randomly embedded in the comment indicate that it originated from a site whose theme ranges somewhere between a dating site and porn. It’s impossible to tell which it is without clicking on the link, which would be a very bad idea.
I’ve removed the links and inserted “link removed” in their place.
Spam Comment of the Week
Enjoy this marvel of delirium that was awarded the Courier’s Spam of the Week:
Assange thinks about bargain show up in advance of u
selection, the mans advisor stated that found on sunday.
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spain rejects all the conditions coupled with Trump does have declined each collusion. chair for economic council chosen committee consult verifies his / her desire for meeting up with mister Assange, law Jennifer velupe stated in a statement.
request enjoys wanted your boyfriend to can be purchased in person at your mutually agreeable time and place. our company is greatly considering the serve up remember, though,but must ensure mr Assange insurance coverage is almost certainly certain.
Assange is it being basically the Ecuadorean embassy when he am little bit while,pleasant relief asylum in 2012 to not have extradition to Sweden (link removed) to manage questions about suggestions (link removed) towards the night criminal activity, claims possess later terminated. Diplomatic then navy hints concerning WikiLeaks rrnternet site. Senators might meted out, so a spokesperson with respect to Assange pronounced: is feasible in this area
consumer hasn been quite eliminated, that he supplied.
prior to the 2016 election, WikiLeaks released (link removed) email messages compromised within Democratic entity and the individual email trading account of a jesse Podesta, Hillary Clinton voice message campaign chairman.
On visiting the town survive month, Ecuadorean leader Lenin Moreno secured associated with Ecuador or the united kingdom staying in talks to try and end this keep at the embassy.