Wednesday, November 25, 2009

No More Mr. Nice Guy



The following is a comment which appeared twice today on a 2 year old post, once in English and once in French. It's written by "Anonymous" and I'm thinking Anonymous is a fancy way of saying Spam-bot. This is what the comment said, word for word:

"Our well-bred support team of hilarious equipped pharmacists resolve take you Best Discount Pharmacy On-line, consulting on disparate healthiness questions."
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[Editor's note: I removed the website URL mentioned in the comment because I don't want to be an accomplice for such mindless "marketing." Plus if I re-posted the URL, it might just encourage Son-of-Spam to also lurk around the 2 year old comment section of my blog.]
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If you're like me, most of the time receiving a comment on a blog post is like getting a virtual high five. It's an affirmation that what you wrote touched someone in some way. Leaving or receiving a comment is a little piece of humanity that transcends the miles and reaches out across the nameless Blog-o-sphere to offer a human touch.

The above comment, however, does not, and it just annoys me on so many levels. First, it's so poorly written and so impersonal and it has nothing to do with the post on which it appeared. Plus, it doesn't take a rocket scientist or an IT guy to know that this comment is obviously spam. Nobody likes spam; and no matter how you slice it, dice it, saute it, marinate it, or fry it, spam is still spam. . . and nobody really knows what the heck spam is even made of.
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Okay now let's talk about the content of the "comment." I may not be an English professor, but grammatically, this comment is akin to listening to someone scratch a chalkboard while having a tooth drilled at the dentist. And the word choice?! Just strange. What in the world does"disparate healthiness questions" even mean? Disparate healthiness?? Maybe something was lost in translation from Spam-sylvania.

And while we're at it, did you notice how the spam pharmaceutical "support team" is described? Perhaps I'm too picky, but when I'm in the market for medicine, I'm usually more interested in the fact that the pharmacist is a real-live, breathing person and that he/she can read and fill a prescription correctly. Period. It's all business for me. I really don't care if the pharmacist is "well-bred" or "hilarious." CVS is not a country club and it's certainly not a comedy club.


I've just about had it with these insidious spam messages, so in an effort to "stick it to the man Spam-bot," I'm writing this open letter to all the weird, creepy, nosey, questionable, grammatically-challenged robots (well-bred or not) out in the Blog-o-sphere. (If I could find a way to reverse-spam this to all the robots in the world I would.)


To Spamever it may concern,

Your recent unwanted attempt at soliciting my patronage has forced me not only to leave my mini-vacation to deal with your insidious assault on my blog and my email, but it has also caused me untold annoyance and personal real-live, human distress. I am not now, nor in the future, interested in hearing about your "discount pharmaceuticals" whether or not you are hilarious, well-bred, or can answer my disparate healthiness questions.
Kindly keep your creepy, non-human robotic tentacles out of the comment section of my blog archives. If you continue invading my virtual personal space, I may be forced to resort to more aggressive means of defending my home turf; to fight fire with fire, or in this case, Spambots with Spam-i-cide, otherwise known as the dreaded Letter Verification.

Sincerely and humanly yours,

Cathy
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[Update: I've received 4 more comments from Sir Spam-a-lot, which has forced me to initiate the comment letter verification function. I know how inconvenient it is to wade through letter verification but I have no other choice. Sad how a few bad spam-apples can spoil it for everyone else. My apologies to all the real people.]

14 comments:

Sycamore Moon Studios said...

Go, Cathy. Go, Cathy. Get the Spambots. Get the Spambots.

A virtual cheer for you. Love the post. You hit the nail on the head!

Lori said...

you go girl!!! too funny...i still get a little spam even with the verification...but it's one step deleting...easy peasy...have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving day!!!

Atticbabys said...

You're my hero Cathy! Good for you!
I've been getting these alot lately too!? Creepy!.
Happy Thanksgiving to you! (and a virtual high five)
:) Nan

Country Wings in Phoenix said...

You go girl...
Happy Thanksgiving.
May you day be filled with many blessings for you and your family.

Country hugs...Sherry

Alexa Lett said...

I will be sharing your blog on my blog as soon as I get home to do it! Your writings were Spam-a-riffic! They equated the exact sentiments I feel...but, needed you to pen. Obviously, my disparate health has hindered my abilities to converse. KUDOS!

Elizabeth Prata said...

LOL, great post Cathy!

Samantha said...

You are so funny. I totally forgive your use of letter verification for comments. It boosts my vocabulary (what does "alcalit" mean, anyway??)

Amy said...

I had to do the same thing because of some weird stuff from robots. I think it is a shame. Do not fear, I am still going to comment. I am a literate non robot, so I have no problem with letter verifications.
Amy
PS Thanks for the visit at my blog (where everyone has to suffer due to previous robots!!)

Thimbleanna said...

You're so funny! I hate those stupid spam messages too. Fortunately wordpress catches almost all of them before they ever make it to my inbox. Spammers should be sent to prison and have their fingernails pulled out! ;-)

Tipper said...

I Amen your letter and your thoughts about Spam-some of the spam comments are down right disgusting.

Suzanne said...

Real person here... *applause, applause* "Son-of-Spam", Lol!

It sounds like one of those really bad "translated from some obscure language" instruction sheets you get in those hard-to-put-together kid's toys.

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

kaniki's said...

Holy Crap Cathy- you are just amazingly hilarious!! I just love coming over to visit.. A way with words- you so do have..... ** Giggles And Smiles**

Thanks for popping by to see me - and I so hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful as well- and the holidays ahead are joyeous...

Blessings My Friend...

Niki
Kaniki's Prims & Whims...

Cindy said...

You go gurl! Kick some Spam-bot booty! :D And totally understand about the letter verify, no worries! :D

-c

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, they really don't care if we don't like their spam. The askimet plugin wordpress automatically provides the .com users takes care of almost all of it. Once in a while one sneaks through but for the most part we don't see them. Another thing wordpress does is allow you to set a date for closing comments, since it is usually the older posts that bring on the spam. You can set it to turn off the comment feature once a post is (for example) 3 months old... and that stops some of the spam.

Don't even get me started on the blog scrapers. *They* are way worse than the spammers because they steal your posts in their entirety, and post them on their aggregator sites to earn money with pay-per-click ads. Dealing with them is a huge time suck.

Anyway, I LOVE your Eclectic Company stuff! Thanks for stopping at fracas.