My Comment Doesn't Show Up On the Site (Mike's Mets)

My Comment Doesn't Show Up On the Site

Monday, June 11, 2007
By Mike's Mets

I've had a couple of emails recently asking why a comment the user posted didn't make it onto the site. While a very small number of comments get blocked for bad language, the most likely explanation for this happening is that it was incorrectly blocked by a filter looking for comment spam.

If you're not familiar with this, let me explain. Blogs like this one that accept comments become the target of those that use automated software that repeatedly attempt to post comments that have nothing to do with the blog itself, but simply are ads with link to other sites. If you've ever seen a blog with a bunch of comments offering links to by Viagra online or pictures of live nude whatever, you're seeing comment spam.

Blogs use different strategies to combat this. Having to type in a combination of letters and numbers from a picture is one strategy. Another is requiring a commenter to create a login with the site before they can place a comment.

The system that we use here is a combination of several checks that each comment goes through. One looks for keywords like Viagra and other popular medications. There are other checks as well that I won't go into. The system works fairly well, as there are literally hundreds of attempts to post these spam comments to this blog every day, and only a handful make it through where I have to manually delete them.

Unfortunately, some legitimate comments get tagged as spam by the filters. I do my best to try to catch these before they are deleted, but the ever-increasing volume of these automated attacks make it inevitable that I will miss some. If this happens to you, please email me and let me know. (The link is on the right sidebar near the top of the page under "About Mike's Mets"). There are steps I can take to keep this from happening to you. I enjoy your comments, even if you disagree with me, and don't want them to disappear into some cyberspace limbo.

I'm sorry that this filtering of comments is a necessary evil. If we stopped doing this, the site would very quickly get saturated with spam comments and render the comments useless. Thanks for understanding.

About Mike: I was the original writer on this web site, actually its only writer for the first 15 months of existence. Although I am grateful for the excellent contributions of my fellow writers here, I have no plans of stepping back into strictly an editorial role. I started this thing in the first place because I love to write and I love the Mets, and blogging here keeps me somewhat sane. If you haven't had enough already, more bio info can be found here.

Support Mike's Mets by shopping at our Amazon Store

More Mets Stories:
SportsSpyder Mets

Continuous Mets Coverage:
MetsBlog
Hot Foot

Authored by Mike's Mets, Posted on June 11, 2007 2:14 PM | Permalink

Comments (2)

Thanks Mike:

i noticed some of mine deleted but usually its from computers other than at work/home both of which have intricate firewalls and other filters themselves.

Posted by Ed | June 11, 2007 4:34 PM

Actually, I have it automatically set up to delete all comments it even thinks are from you. [just kidding]

Posted by Mike Steffanos | June 21, 2007 7:36 PM