Comment/Spam Policy
For a long time I had severe spam issues. At one point, between April 8 and 23, 2010, I had 913 spam comments. (Were I only to have so many human readers!)
There are spam filters operating on this blog. If a comment is placed into the spam filter, it is deleted without reading it. The filter is very good – every one I’ve reviewed is a positive hit.
There is a separate holding area for comments that are not auto-approved but not known spam. They are held there until I can review them, which is typically a couple times per week. I don’t think I’ve ever had a comment there that I have not approved, and I usually reply to every comment as soon as it has been approved.
Here’s some tips for those who wish to comment:
- Posts which simply say, “Good Job!,” “Like the site!,” etc…. I like such comments – I like to know people are reading what I’ve written. What writer doesn’t? But it is quite probable that I will edit or delete such comments, and such comments may autofilter it to spam. It is better if…
- Comments must be about the subject I’ve written on. If it’s not about the topic, expect it to be deleted.
- On most posts and pages comments are now automatically closed after a fairly short period.
- Don’t expect me to approve any post where you have identified yourself using a commercial website or product. You should know what I mean – “Supah Berry Juices,” “Good Ensurances of Thy Vehicle,” “Fly Agra culture,” etc. (Names edited because they can be used by search engines and bots to target a spammable site.)
- No, I don’t trade links, except for very select other chess sites. You can ask in a comment if I’ll link to you – I’m pretty sure you get one link in your body text before the spam trigger trips. I’ll check out your site and decide. Already having linked to me scores points. If I don’t get back to you, inquire once if I saw the link request without including the link. If I don’t get back to you after that, I’ve declined the offer (though I can’t see myself not actually telling you so….) Warning: I’m not sure why I’m writing in such detail – I’m very particular and want to keep my link list relatively small.
