Spam

I just have to tell someone.

It's driving me crazy. The spam is driving me crazy. I screen my comments, meaning they come to me from Blogger as email. It gives me the chance to read comments before posting them.

This used to be a simple thing to do, took very little time. But now it seems that for every genuine comment, there are five that qualify as pure comment spam.

Comment spam is generally machine generated from an Anonymous individual. This entrepreneur wants me to direct you to links, places you probably don't want to go. They're not the kind of places you would find on my sidebar. Do you really want to visit websites for shady pharmaceuticals, diet drugs, and porn? Doubt it.

The content of the comment can be so disgusting it literally makes me sick just scanning it to screen it.

My experience is probably akin to what one of my kids experienced at the tender age of nine. He opened an email with a naked little girl captioned, Got milk? Disturbing to some of us.

So I'm becoming loathe to open comments from people who go by the name, Anonymous. Especially since they're anything but anonymous.

Thus:

If you can. Try to work with the other options for signing comments so they're less likely to be deleted due to my not irrational aversion, my allergy to comment spam.

Instead of choosing Anonymous, pick the option: Name/URL. Choose a name for yourself, and and fill in the box with your new moniker. We all need to reinvent ourselves once in awhile, and everyone needs an alias. This is your chance.

You don't have to put down a URL. There are too many in the universe already.

Then tell me everything. Or whatever it was you wanted to say.

Much obliged,

therapydoc