BAM: Getting it off my chest
Saturday, November 26, 2011 at 07:08AM This what my e-mail inbox looks like too many mornings:
It's a bit hard to decipher, but basically my total new mail consists of two catalog sales messages, one listserv digest, and eight BAMs - Blog spAMs. Despite my blog host Squarespace having a spam filter, the spam is growing. And my whack-a-mole efforts to keep it off my site are not always sufficiently timely to keep readers from seeing this crap (as a couple readers have pointed out.) What I find interesting is that the spam comes, it seems, most often from companies hawking knock-off fashions. Obviously, the senders have never seen how I dress - they got the knock-off part right but fashion is never associated with my name.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Spending the rest of the Thanksgiving holiday going through the final page-proofs of my book that will be coming out in February and silently giving thanks that none of the 26 relatives that came for dinner on Thursday has called to report food poisoning from the turkey, cranberry sauce, salads or dressing I prepared.
Whew.
Reader Comments (4)
This is the primary reason that I "unsubscribed" form your comments feed. What I love about blogs is the ability to read new material and reactions to the new stuff--to follow the conversations that happen in comments. You are extremely responsive to all your commenters, even including a personal email message too, which i really appreciate. But the wading through the "BAM" as you call it in my reader became tedious, so I finally unsubscribed from the comments feed. SInce I've been a long reader I know that I can pop right out of the reader to see what conversations are happening around topics of interest, but sigh, I do wish I could track them in the reader instead.
Have you researched other hosting services (via users) to see if they have the same problem? I use Bluehost, and while I do get the occasional spammer and supposed "guest post" offer, usually when I pop over to the blog to mark it as spam, it is already there in the spam filter.
Of course my blog doesn't get the traffic or attention yours gets, considering I'm small potatoes and all.
Never fear though, yours is still one of my favorites.
Hi Cathy Jo,
I had not considered how this BAM was impacting those who wanted to follow the comments to my post (which are often more valuable than than the posts themselves). Thank you. I turned commentmoderation back on. Sigh... You can re-subscribe.
Doug
Yes, it definitely affects those of us who subscribe to comments! The only thing worse than seeing your inbox full of email about spam comments from your blog is seeing an inbox full of spam comments from someone ELSE'S blog. :-) But I deal with it...as you said, the comments are often the most interesting part of the conversation.
And it's interesting that your spam is mostly about knock-off fashion..mine seems to be about online marketing and tech tools. Better than Viagra, I guess.
Best of luck finishing things up with your book! Exciting! :-)
Thanks, Angela. I just turned moderation back on for the blog. Comments will be delayed a little, but the spam should be less of a problem.
Doug