And what would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree
Crawl upward, where I cannot stand alone? – Edmund Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac
I really, really hate parasites; there’s just something inherently revolting about creatures that feed off of other beings not by openly and honestly attacking and devouring them, but by insidiously creeping onto or into their bodies, attaching themselves, draining blood or other vital essences and perhaps even multiplying until the unwitting host is dead. Nor is that death the quick, comparatively-merciful one afforded by a hungry hunter, but instead a slow, lingering, debilitating descent into sickness, weakness and eventual expiration which in the end leaves it a pathetic husk of its former self. I’ve never been disturbed by the sight of a carnivore killing its prey, but stray animals literally crawling with fleas and ticks, or biology-text photos of intestines jammed full of ascaris worms, are to me the stuff of nightmares.
That being the case, I’m sure you can guess how I feel about blog parasites, those creatures who attempt to derive their sustenance by infesting healthy, thriving blogs like mine. I don’t mean “scrapers” or plagiarists; though I certainly understand why some bloggers are very incensed by them, they don’t really bother me because their use of my material neither harms my reputation nor decreases my traffic (though I might feel differently if they were making money from my content when I wasn’t, and without acknowledging me). And I have no idea why some commercial entities have tried to frame quoting and linking as “copyright infringement”, nonsensical claims about “deep linking” notwithstanding; links and references are advertising and help a site to grow, and the vast majority of my traffic comes via deep links. In fact, linking is so good for a site that it’s precisely the raison d’être for the most common and debilitating form of blog parasitism, namely comment spam.
Those of you who don’t have blogs yourselves may be blissfully unaware of this plague, which pours into popular blogs every day like a veritable river of leeches. Some of it looks like real commentary, though extremely vague (“Thank you for sharing superb informations”), completely inappropriate (“I’ll be sure to order from you!”) or even composed of inapplicable criticisms (“You should proofread more carefully, this post is full of typos.”) What marks it as spam is that the website link in the poster’s name goes to a commercial site of some sort or to the client of an SEO scammer. Another common type contains nothing other than a number of links, and the most odious form is a gigantic wall of links for various pharmaceuticals, knockoffs of designer accessories, or things advertised in languages I can’t read (most often Russian or Polish).
Fortunately, the Akismet program monitors all comments and shunts spam into a folder for later review and discard; it’s extremely rare that it misses one, but even that goes into the moderation queue where I can catch it and throw it back into the spam folder. If it weren’t for the fact that it’s sometimes too aggressive and mistakes legitimate comments (even from regular posters) for spam, I would simply empty the folder without looking at it because scanning the contents of that folder now takes up a measurable fraction of my time here. But even though that is a drain on my resources, it’s nothing compared to the damage this blog would suffer if it got through; 72% of all attempted comments over the life of the site have been spam, which will give you some idea of how repellent and uninviting the comment threads would be if they got through. Considering that a large portion of the success of this blog comes from the stimulating and entertaining discourse in those threads, I don’t think it’s any exaggeration to say that these parasites have the power to severely weaken a site by making it look ridiculous and unprofessional and rendering its comment threads virtually inaccessible.
Another (though fortunately vastly less common) kind of comment-thread parasite is one we might call the “Missionary”; this is a guy who searches the internet for comment threads on which he can post long, repetitive and link-filled rants on the topic of his one track (and he never has more than one). For example, there was the guy who tried to post seven column-length comments about the Whore of Babylon on “Harlots of the Bible”, and the more recent lunatic who attempted a couple of dozen long, viciously misogynistic, anti-Semitic conspiracy theory posts on “Pendulum”. One might suggest that perhaps these people might simply get their own blogs, but they don’t because nobody would read them; a blog has to be interesting and to consist of more than one single endlessly-repeated (and generally hateful) idea in order to attract readers, so the missionary sallies forth on his one-man crusade, with the intent of feeding his ego on other bloggers’ hard-won audiences.
The last type I want to talk about today is one I’ll call the “Self-invited Guest”; this comes in the form of an email from some entity representing itself as a woman who asks if “she” could please write a guest post on one’s blog. Keep in mind, this isn’t a famous person or one connected to one’s general topic; I mean, it isn’t Dolly Parton offering to write about her views on decriminalization or something like that. No, this is an endless succession of similarly (not to mention poorly) worded emails offering to make guest posts about industrial organization psychology in the workplace, the great shortage of nurses, the rigors of today’s marketing programs or the joy of free online university courses. At first I replied to them, politely explaining that I’m quite capable of writing all my own posts (thank you very much), and that on the rare occasions when I have a guest blogger it will be someone I know and respect. When they started coming more often I just ignored them, only to find that they would ask repeatedly like a poorly-raised child begging for candy at the supermarket. When Ken White of Popehat receives this sort of trash he replies with absolutely hilarious letters, always about ponies in some way or another; until September 26th I never felt inspired to adopt Ken’s strategy, but on that day I received five identically-worded follow-ups, and soon discovered that Ken had also heard from them (her? it?) again. So I wrote my own response and sent it to all five (plus a new one I had received three days earlier); though I despair of ever reaching Ken’s level of genius in this area, I’ll share my humble attempt in tomorrow’s column.
The thing all these have in common, and what differentiates them in my mind from scrapers and the like, is that they not only want to feed on my work, popularity and traffic, but damage and weaken my blog in the process. Imagine comment threads full of pointless sentences alternating with enormous, ugly ads and hateful crackpottery attached to dreary, inane, inarticulate posts on subjects you couldn’t possibly care less about; how long would you stick around for that? Spammers, hacks and nuts lack the ability to compete with other internet content or to draw an audience on their own, so they attempt to worm their way into a healthy site, drain it for all they can get and then move on to the next victim.
Hi Maggie,
interesting you talk about parasites on blogs. Paul Elam accused me publicly of being a “parasite” because I was using “Mens News Daily” and The Spearhead to break the truth that legislation is not law and that all men in the MRA area could easily free themselves if they just educated themselves.
One wonder how one becomes a parasite when bringing the news of how to free millions of men from the tyranny of guvment. Paul has never retracted this comment by the way.
Then there is the question of “what makes a blog successful”? Which might extend to “what makes a writer or speaker successful”?
It seems to me that in the west today “success” is defined as number of viewers. In which case “The Simpsons” would be right up there with the Bible in the west for surely more people have seen an episode of the simpsons than have ever opened a bible in the west, right? Ditto “big brother”, “jersey shore” and “the kardashians”.
If one measures success by viewers then one must call these “novacane for the mind” programs “successful”.
Your blog is substantially about “sex worker rights”. Just like there are sites about mens rights, womens rights, and GLBT rights. Everyone is talking about “rights”.
The most extraordinary thing about this is that if you look? No one is talking about where do rights come from, how do you claim them, how do you exercise them, how do you defend them?
You are the most intelligent woman blogger I can find. But you haven’t yet had a discussion about these topics unless I missed it.
Paul Elam will not talk about these question. Neither will Glen Sacks or Bill Price or ANY mens rights groups.
Here is a question for you.
Do you believe that “rights” are inherently different for men, women, sex workers, GLBTs, or even gay whales?
Or do you believe that rights are inherent in the creation of a living being, bestowed by their creator, and inalienable…just like is written in the declaration of independence.
I can tell you one thing. The best way to be successful is to tell the truth. It also happens to be the best way to be attacked by those who do not want to know the truth which is the vast majority in the west.
Just a thought…perhaps these questions about rights are worth someone of intelligence discussing…and that sure rules out Girl Writes What!! LOL!!
Kisses…Maggie..I really like what you write.
Thank you for commenting on Maggie’s discussion of, among other things, one-subject rants by giving us a one-subject rant. But I’m guessing that you completely miss the irony of that.
You’re probably right, Maggie probably hasn’t devoted an entire post to “What are rights, and who gets them?” Clearly you’re also right in that she perhaps has kept her silence because she is a-tremble at the outcome if she should offend some evil conspiracy. Or it could be that she hasn’t written about that topic because there are 1,001 other things that she’d rather write about.
Maggie has never devoted an entire post to the topic of ponies, either. Clearly, someone has put the fear into her.
/sarcasm off
Speaking for myself, I don’t want to hear that “Rights are granted to us by our Creator.” Once people accept such a statement, then some religious whacko can come along and claim, “My Holy Book says that such-and-such group doesn’t have rights, because their wicked conduct offends the Creator.”
Given your rant (a rant is only negative when not justified or so over the top that it begs ignoring; a justified, vehement scold is a good thing) and the quality of your comment section, however much I bring it down, either you or software are working overtime. I hope the latter.
Kisses…Maggie (Blerg! Somebody please pass me a bucket). Once again Nolan’s only contribution to Maggie’s post is a comment about him because in Nolan’s mind – let’s say it together – “it’s all about me”.
What you failed to disclose Nolan was that you yourself are guilty of spamming other people’s blogs and websites and facebook pages with not only your own parasitic misogyny but also by supporting that turd JohnRambo who spams his Boycott American Women crapola (which is a front for an Indian.wife mail order bride business) everywhere. Paul Elam is right on the moneyabout you I reckon.
I’m with the other responders. Your material is always the same and isn’t useful or constructive. On reddit that is nothing unusual, but on a good blog it is. Please go where you are wanted.
Imagine comment threads full of pointless sentences alternating with enormous, ugly ads and hateful crackpottery attached to dreary, inane, inarticulate posts on subjects you couldn’t possibly care less about; how long would you stick around for that?
Which is precisely why the Honest Courtesan is still on my reading list (although I’ve only been lurking for a while). Many other blogs don’t filter their comments and thus useful comments drown in spam and with them the interest to stay.
The other thing is that this is one of the few (if only) blogs where it is worth reading all comments. I’ve commented on it before but it is still exceedingly rare to find a blog where the comment thread is not bogged down in mud-throwing and name-calling after about half-a-dozen comments.
We follow you, wherever you are roaming, O Mistress mine. 😉
Thank you, Paul! My philosophy on comments is rather like that maxim to “become the change you seek”; I know what irritates me about comment threads on other websites (including some blogs I like), and I think it’s worth the effort to ensure it doesn’t happen here. 🙂
“72% of all attempted comments over the life of the site have been spam”
Oh my goodness! I had no idea it was that bad. Thank you for putting in the effort to maintain your blog’s standards. I know a lot of blogs don’t and it shows in the Turing Test-like comment sections.
I originally wrote this column on September 19th (though it was modified on the 26th); the fraction is up to 73% as of today. I have no doubt that within a few more years it will be above 90%.
Out of curiosity, what percentage of comments blocked by Akismet are legitimate (versus spam)? If it’s low enough, maybe less frequent screening of blocked comments to could save your some grief.
It’s very, very low. But screening them less often would not help, because it’s far less intrusive to just do it whenever I open the dashboard; if I waited until they accumulated I would just dump the whole folder rather than going through all that. If the number increases much more, though, I’ll have to start doing exactly that and relying on commenters to let me know when their comments fail to appear.
Wow! Three-quarters of comments are spam; yet some posts of yours attract very many — 50 or more — comments, meaning that perhaps another 150 comments are spam. I’d no idea that you were lumbered with such junk, and I’m impressed with your (and your spam filter’s) industry in excising them.
I wonder; does your blog attract so much spam because of what you say — your views are often trenchant — or is it because of spammer’s perception of you? And now I realise why some blogs have no facility for commenting, much as it would be interesting and useful.
To give you some idea: When I first open my “dashboard” (WordPress control panel) in the morning, I usually have about 2-5 real comments, but over 40 spam comments. As the day goes on the proportion of spam drops somewhat, but it never drops below half.
I don’t think there’s any human agency involved in determining the target for spam comments; I suspect it’s done by searches on certain keywords, and my high Google page rank (5) puts me on the skyline for some of those terms.
Great. I’ve read the responses at Popehat. Now I want a pony. >.<
Radley Balko sometimes posts some of the more hilarious or random emails he gets under the title “I Get Email”…
You must be new to the internet 🙂
They deluge my blog, even though I don’t get that much traffic. Even user registration doesn’t make the problem go away.
I think it’s very polite of you to simply delete the diatribes people try to post in your comment section. Ken has been known to edit them to say, “I eat paste”.
Urgh, comment spam is one of those things I hate about blogging (the other being HTML and CSS coding). I get around 100 spam comments per day, and I don’t even get that much traffic. And since I rarely get any actual comments, I’d venture to say that around 95% of the comments received are spam, haha.
Well, I guess that’s one of the nuisances that comes with the territory.
I also have a few blogs, and get quite a bit of spam (also mostly caught by spam filter). But if you’re having a lot of trouble, perhaps you should get a non-standard captha? Google’s re-captha has been broken, so bots get through it some of the time (when they try enough times). But what you can do, if you have the skills, money, or contacts, is make some kind of custom anti-bot filter. For instance, an automatically generated math puzzle that is solvable by anyone in a few seconds. When they are told in English words, bots can’t figure them out (yet).
I’m not familiar with WordPress, but would it be possible to have all legitimate posters include a “phrase of the day” in their reply which you could use as a search filter? Since the length and location of the phrase would vary daily, it would be hard for bots to pick it up.
Doesn’t need to vary, because spammers are lazy. Nevertheless, this idea would make more work for Maggie, even if wordpress cooperated, because too many people would not know to use the phrase, would forget to use the phrase, or mistype the phrase. As things stand, simply dumping the spam folder wouldn’t be a horrible solution but that would not be true were a pass phrase required for posting.
WordPress doesn’t allow “captcha” or anything else like that, and I hate those things so I wouldn’t use them even if it did. Really, Akismet works very well, and with far less work than those other methods.
I can’rt believe there’s that much spam.
Sometimes rants have their place. Sometimes they’re just rants. One thing Maggie does do is let people vent; it’s like a virtual coffee shop.
For that, she has my gratitude. And I love the commentariat here.
I used to be in the business of blocking e-mail spam. My system had an extremely high blocking fraction and essentially no false positives. Perhaps I’ll see if I can help the akismet folks.
Anyway, I’m another who actually reads all the comments on this blog. I don’t do that elsewhere because either there are too many idiots or the comments are mostly echoes.
That said, there are a few people here who I rather wish would just go away; their noise outweighs their signal by a wide margin. Oh for the Usenet killfile; that’s about the only thing I miss from my days there.
I had to go to a whitelist a few years ago because I was getting 300 spam messages per day that got through the “heuristic” screening that was supposed to keep them out. The whitelilst reduced that number to about 10 per day in the “suspect email folder” and while I’m sure that some legitimate emails got caught in the filter, I just didn’t have the time to go through all of them.
Having to do that on a daily basis would be a severe pain in the posterior.
I like VW Singer’s phrase of the day suggestion, but would that be a bigger administrative hassle? And if you posted on a day old blog, would you use today’s phrase or yesterday’s?
PS. Love the Cyrano quote. The whole scene actually. The only one funnier is when Cyrano is giving examples of all the things the Viscount could have said about his nose, where he ends up with, “These things you might have said if you had a tinge of letters or of wit, but of wit, not so, you never had an atom and of letters, you need but three to write you down. A S S.
A good parasite doesn’t kill its host, and, unfortunately, we’re a species of many bad parasites. This isn’t quite a “tragedy of the commons” situation, but it would comfort me if we got our head screwed on straight about this kind of thing.
I’ve always appreciated the time and the thought that you put into this blog, but I had no idea how much you had to put into just this one issue. Ug.
BTW, I’m guessing that this isn’t your favorite Animal Planet show. Don’t be eating any CGI food while watching it.
Akismet works well. I am, unfortunately, in @Boar’s ball park, 98% spam, 2% real, traffic modest. Without Akismet we couldn’t blog.
As of today, I’m at 87% spam. Without Akismet, there is no such thing as a living comment thread any more.