Paksworld

The patterns of spam that gets through the filter into the Paksworld moderation box is…interesting.  Recently, it’s become clear that search bots are picking up on the two posts with “plumbing” in their titles…there’s been a rush (pun intended) of spams from plumbing contractors, plumbing supply houses,  hardware supply houses, etc.   Quite a ways back, with a post on horses,  suddenly veterinary suppliers, horse feed suppliers, tack, and other equestrian spammers showed up.  I haven’t yet had any knitting-related spam, although the online yarn suppliers I’ve used show up on the sidebars of more commercial websites.

I mark the spam “comments” as spam, and they go away–and those particular spammers don’t get in again–but the whole “scour the internet for any possible keyword that might be a customer” thing means there’s always more.   Commercial spam that makes sense (sort of) like this is one thing.   Then there’s the troll-spam.

Trolls run around looking for someone to bash, or at least put down, or to instigate a flamewar.   I weeded out a lot of them early on–I doubt they ever bother to read anyone’s commenting rules, but they do go away if blocked often enough.  But it’s a big world with a lot of people in it, and some of those people wander around in their spare time (of which they seem to have a lot) looking for likely targets.   Certain topics draw them out.    Mostly, I just mark them as spam, and they’re whisked away by Akismet.   If they seem earnest but a bit socially unskilled (as any of us may seem, on a bad day)  I earnestly explain to them the rules of the place and the error of their ways,  and then simply remove the offending “comment”.

After all, sometimes a troll is just a person with  headache,  a bad patch in their LifeStuff, some other stressor that’s lowered their ability to self-regulate, and all they need is a reminder that this isn’t the place to treat someone else’s blog as a whackamole game.    A few come back, more moderately.   I have a lot of respect for someone who can do that.    But sometimes a troll is just a troll.  Most disappear, presumably riding their Huff off to more fertile lands for trollery.   A few try to argue with me in email.     Another few may hang around for awhile, reading but not commenting.  And if they do, they might learn something.    This is why, after a particularly egregious blast of trollery, I sometimes take the occasion to remind everyone of the rules.

Coping with the spam for cheap drugs, handbags, shoes, watches, sex aids, plumbing supplies, horse tack, etc. is easy…mark it spam, forget it.  Coping with the troll-spam isn’t always.  I have to read it, decide if it’s a person being intentionally “bad” (for my definitions thereof) or someone who’s in need of some guidance but is goodhearted under the rough surface.   Sometimes the distinction is clear; often it’s not, and even someone I end up relegating to the spam category deserves the consideration of a careful reading.   Luckily, there’s not a lot of troll-spam.