This blog is just wonderful, apparently

This blog is just wonderful, apparently

One of the more interesting things about running a blog that is visited by a reasonable number of people is the fan mail. My immense modesty prevents me from keeping visible the thousands of positive comments that are posted here, but I thought I would give you an idea of the sort of praise I receive (and Akismet hides) on a daily basis. This small sample is all from the past 48 hours, with my comments in blue:

  • My brother recommended I might like this website. He was entirely right. This publish truly made my day. You cann’t believe simply how so much time I had spent for this info! Thanks!
    Actually, I cann, how so much! Many of my publishes make many people’s days. Please tell your brother I said “Hi!”, and thank him for the massage oil.
  • That is very attention-grabbing, You are an overly professional blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look ahead to in search of more of your great post. Additionally, I’ve shared your web site in my social networks.
    I look ahead to in search, too. I appreciate the social sharing, because I’m sure you have a lot of friends.
  • Thank you so much for this! I haven’t been this thrilled by a blog post for a long time! Keep up the great job. Keep on inspiring the people!
    Don’t mention it; inspiration and thrills are all part of the service here.
  • wonderful blog, very well written. I like it very much. I would read your site monthly and recommend it to my classmates. Please keep it updated. Keep on the good work. – A sweet girl
    Only monthly? I’m hurt. To make amends, send pics of yourself and your classmates to my email at pedowatch@fbi.gov.
  • Such a wonderful analysis! No idea how you were able to say this text..it’d take me long hours. Well worth it though, I’d suspect.
    Your suspicions are correct, and not just because of the huge cash kickbacks and the swarms of groupies that I struggle to keep away with a dirty stick. It’s feedback like yours that really makes it all worthwhile.
  • Thank you for every other fantastic article.
    Why don’t you like the other 50% of them?
  • Among the a ton of responses on your articles, I guess I am not the only one having all of the pleasure right here!
    Indeed you’re not. All of the pleasure is exactly what the a ton of people have right here.
  • Nice commentary. last thirty times I uncovered this online internet internet site and desired to permit you be conscious that i’ve been gratified, heading by way of your site’s posts. Cheers, Glen
    Cheers! <drinks beer> Glen, thanks to your erudite commentary, I am indeed conscious that you have been gratified for the last thirty times due to my online internet internet site. Thank you for the information.
  • I am gonna watch out for brussels. I’ll appreciate when you proceed this in future. Numerous folks will be benefited out of your writing. Cheers!
    Cheers! <drinks another beer> Although I didn’t get an invite to the Bricsys conference, I’m proceeding to watch out for Brussels right now. I’ll let you know if I see it. Wait, here it is! Oh, sorry, false alarm, it was only Bruges.
  • I really appreciated this wonderful post. Be sure to keep it up. Cheers !!
    Cheers! <drinks yet another beer> Sorry, but after all this beer I’m finding that a little difficult.
  • whoah this blog is great i like studying your posts. Keep up the great work! You already know, lots of persons are searching round for this info, you could help them greatly.
    Whoah! I could, but I don’t think I will.
  • hi!,I like your writing very much! percentage we keep in touch more approximately your article on AOL? I require a specialist in this space to solve my problem. May be that’s you! Taking a look ahead to look you.
    Look you? Are you a Welsh stereotype, by any chance? I’m sorry, but as a specialist in this space I have to inform you that the approximate percentages are all on CompuServe these days.
  • you’re really a excellent webmaster. The website loading velocity is incredible. It kind of feels that you’re doing any distinctive trick. Furthermore, The contents are masterwork. you’ve performed a wonderful process in this topic!
    The distinctive trick is simply a matter of changing the server’s website loading velocity setting to Ludicrous Speed. This is indeed a wonderful process.
  • I uncovered your web page via search motors even when looking for for the connected topic, your web page demonstrated up up. give many as a consequence of you for the fabulous blog. Amazingg skills! hold on man, you rock!
    Rev up those search motors, man, because demonstrating up up for for the connected topic is my amazingg speciality.
  • Amazing things here. I am very happy to look your post. Thank you a lot and i am taking a look ahead to touch you.
    Only in an appropriate and consentual way, I hope.
  • Websites like yours can be extremely rare in the webspace brimming with crap and spam.
    I know what you mean; crap and spam get everywhere.

It’s very difficult to remain grounded when I’m being constantly bombarded with praise like this, but I somehow manage to stop it going to my head. I guess that’s because, well, I am pretty awesome.

12 Comments

  1. Earl Kubaskie

    Wonderful you are as webmaster of site site, enchanting indeed.

    Ya know, think about these comments for a bit and some thoughts may appear – like are these actually done by people or by bots? If people, they sure ain’t got a life! But could there actually be a purpose behind them, other than wierding you out? Perhaps planting something searchable?

    On the one hand, I could see a bot filling sites with garbage that might affect search engine ranking of the site. On the other hand, the oddly stilted text might be used to identify the pages on servers that might later be attacked somehow.

    Something like…

    Does your blog service have automatic spam blocking that these are getting through? Test spams, easily located via search engines, that flag which sites are vulnerable to the method before they flood your blog with the real stuff, spam comment full of links to their malware/prono sites, and suddenly blog nauseum is advertising organ enhancement, women who are anxious to hear from us, etc?

    Kind of elegant, even, from an algorithm standpoint – using search engines to keep track for you, not just of the vulnerable sites, but even flagging those where the wonderful webmaster doesn’t bother to police his comments very often.

    Naw, must just be one of your many fans going off the deep end, with a Steve Johnson shrine in the basement… old CADalyst columns taped to the walls, candles… And as to your competitors through the years, Hot Tip Harry pages and Lynn Allen photos pierced with knives…

    Cripes, did somebody slip something into my spice jars before I cooked dinner tonight? Good luck beating this carp! Do we see you in Vegas this year? I actually haven’t been reading your blog much lately. My addiction to the Cheezeburger network is getting bad…

    1. It’s all bots. The nonsense is probably generated by an automated thesaurus-based word-substitution routine. The idea is to get the links to their sites visible and improve the search ranking.

      I wasn’t planning to come to AU, but there’s a remote possibility that might yet come off.

  2. In the 47 hours since posting this, there have been 336 attempts to post spam which were IP blocked by WP-Ban (I maintain an IP list of spammers/trolls), 45 actual spam comments which were caught by Akismet before they appeared on the site, and 11 real comments (other than my own).

  3. TypePad spa filter kills most of mine but about 3 or 4 a day get to me for moderation. The spam I wish were true is those “Your XYZ bank account has been compromised…”. If ony all those account the $ supposedly at risk were really mine!

  4. Earl Kubaskie

    Para 5 huh? I haven’t done any policing on mine, but I’ve not posted in months, either. I’ve had no notices about comments from Typepad, either. Maybe the spambots can even recognize a blog not worth the effort to spam, for lack of traffic?

  5. Sometimes they’re not completely ridiculous and I can see how some bloggers could let them through. For example:

    I do agree with all the ideas you’ve presented in your post. They are very convincing and will certainly work. Still, the posts are very short for newbies. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.

    That one seems almost plausible and I may be doing an injustice by killing the comment from the spam queue and IP banning the author, Gay Bondage Porn. If you’re a real person, Ms. Porn, please let me know and I’ll unban you.

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