The SWLing Post has been online since 2008–plenty of time for SPAMbots to focus their attention on us! In fact, we receive a SPAM comment, on average, every 3 minutes! Way too many comments to moderate individually.
To fight SPAM, we’ve employed a number of strategies over the years including site plugins, scripts, and external applications.
It seems, though, that our SPAM filters are catching more than SPAM: they’re catching your qualified comments! Several readers and contributors have contacted me recently and noted that their comments haven’t posted. I’ve had to search through the 4,000+ comments in the SPAM folder using their email address.
If you’re a regular on the SWLing Post and submit a comment, but it doesn’t appear in the post’s comment thread, please notify me!
Keep in mind that there are certain comments that are automatically moderated or sent to the SPAM folder:
- Those from a new user (who has never had an approved comment)
- Those with multiple links to external sites (a characteristic of much SPAM)
- Comments with common profanity
If your comment is sent to moderation, no worries. There are a few volunteer comment moderators that will approve it within minutes or, at most, a few hours.
I’ll attempt to reset/reinstall our SPAM plugins/scripts in the hopes that this will keep our filters from being over-active. In the meantime, please let me know if your comment doesn’t post, yet meets the criteria above.
Many thanks and apologies for the inconvenience!
