spammers

When you see or read the word "Spam" what comes to your mind first? For me personally, and depending on how hungry I am at the time, I think of the edible form of spam, the one the comes in a can :)

Sometimes, my stomach can rule my head! My favourite, is cutting up spam in slices and soaking it in egg, then put some oil in a pan and fry it. It will take less than a minute to cook - presto, you have a quick and tasty meal ready! Ok, I know this is not a cooking blog...but I think by now you get the picture as to how much I enjoy eating spam.

On the other hand, spam in blogs are another kettle of fish. I'm sure each of you have probably come across it in your own sites in some form or another, so you are likely to be familiar with it. If it's happened to you, how did this make you feel?

This post is to try to explain to those spammers out there the effect they have had and maybe one of them will think twice about what they are doing (hey, I can only hope!). So here goes...

We have a place that is open for people to visit for free, it's like a free art gallery, except it is open for 24 hours/day, 7 days a week. In this place, there are many posts (like paintings on a wall) with different dates and times. When the place first opened, you were free to come and go as you pleased, but more importantly, you were also able to easily leave your comments on items that were posted up. Once you told us your point of view, your valued opinion was shown immediately on the site for everyone else to see, as we had faith that all the people that came into our place would respect the free service that was offered.

Unfortunately, as time went by, to our disappointment it seems some people have a different agenda. Each day, we would find many incomprehensible garbage against our posts or in our niche warehouse. We would have to clean up the mess the spammers had left behind, several times a day :(

Mr/Ms Spammer, I know you're probably thinking, you can't catch me because I've got a dynamic ip address. But do you ever sit back and wonder, that if you left some comprehensible and intelligent comments, you could actually be more effective? Oh, I better not give you any ideas, because people may actually read your comments! The thing is, because of your actions we now have to check that our other visitors are genuine people before they can voice their opinion.

So I'm wondering, do these people actually look at the negative effects of their actions? I gather not, as most sites I've visited will either make their visitors enter in a code or answer a math question and even moderate the comments before it will be posted. For our site, we wanted to make it easy for our visitors to express their thoughts and to allow them to see their comments straight away. I find this method to be more satisfying. For myself, I really enjoy going into a site, making a comment and seeing my opinion posted on their site straight away particularly, if there are a lot of other comments already posted. I feel like I am part of the conversation that is currently in progress and I don't have to wait a day or so to see if my comment has been approved. It's just a nicer way to get conversation on a site flowing more freely. That's why I think it's a real shame when people spam a site for their own personal agenda, they really spoil it for everyone else.

How do you handle and moderate the comments you receive on your site?