Damned Spammers

(Original)*

Well, it finally came to pass. I had to remove an old post from the active roster because of idiot spammers.

I had this post, written back in October of 2013, nearly 4 years ago. It was a beautiful post, a wondrous post, a post about our British and Commonwealth cousins back during the Great War. It was a post about aerial aces, it was, in short, a Friday Flyby. A series I used to do until somebody came along and claimed "Sarge used one of my pictures," to Blogger. They, not wishing to be sued, I guess, reset my post to draft status.

There had been an anonymous comment (anonymous mind you, no name, no handle, nothing, just Sumdood hiding behind the cloak of Internet Invisibility claiming that I should expect a BIG INVOICE, not a bill mind you because, heaven forfend, I allegedly used one of "his" photos. (An invoice? Seriously? How about a bill, or a rejoinder to "not use that one.") Which photo, I asked the faceless Blogger minions, hath offended the AnyMouse Faceless owner of said photograph?

Crickets. Chirping.

Then there was a later comment (again anonymous) from someone acting like it wasn't "him" who threatened me with financial disaster, with a link to an article about lawyers seizing assets and property and putting people out in the street, etc., etc. Again, anonymous. No indication of what photo (for what it's worth I did searches on each photo in that post and each yielded multiple places on the Internet where that photo was used, none attributed) was the offender. Easy, peasy, I could remove that photo (or give it proper attribution) and move on. But no, it's easier to just take stuff down and trust the anonymous complainer that "Really, it's my photo."

Oddly enough, that too was a Friday Flyby, a post about the Battle of Britain and the British and Commonwealth pilots who saved Western Civilization so that the modern goons of political correctness and hurt feelings could attempt to destroy it again in the 21st Century.

Hhmm, someone out there doesn't like the RAF methinks.

Once upon a time I used a photo which a fellow actually sent me an email about. Said, "Hey, you got that from my website, can I at least get a link?" And yes, yes, he could. Great dude, does a nice website on WWII aces. (Aces of WWII, it's linked over there on the sidebar, down at the bottom as it's a website and not a blog. Hhmm, I think I need to do some rearranging over there.) When we work together, stuff gets done, when we complain anonymously, it's 1984.

Ahem, gentlemen and ladies do not complain anonymously. Cowards do.

Anyhoo, on with today's rant. (Does the loss of that Battle of Britain post still rankle? Why yes, yes it does.)

So the Any Mouse crowd has been very active lately. Not Paul, Tennessee Budd, Alemaster, or the cuppla others who comment anonymously on current posts. You guys are fine. I know you. No, there are a bunch of spammers out there who, for some reason, think that people are reading comments in my old posts from 2 to four years ago. Seriously.

What in the name of all that is holy possesses these punk bastards to leave comments on old posts? All it really does is piss me off. I have to go into the spam filter and clear them out, with their offers to sell me Nikes and other crap, or with their hideously bad English "Hey, I'm just now finding your most extravagant blog and my cousin on my mother's side sent me here to..." - blah, blah, blah.

Then one day (Monday actually) I noticed that many of these spam comments were on that old Friday Flyby. So I renamed it by adding an X to the title, which changes the character-based URL but apparently not the numerical URL. Ya know that 123.456.789.111 stuff that computers understand.

No effect.

So I reset the post to Draft status, which means y'all can't see it. (I can use "y'all" because I grew up in the south. South Vermont to be precise. No? It doesn't work that way? Why bless your heart...)

Spam comments are way down now. Almost non-existent. (I've had one since I took the post down.)

But still, it pisses me off. Damned spammers, it's why we can't have nice things.

Here's what I'd like to do to spammers, all of 'em...

via GIPHY

Does that make me a bad person?




* With apologies to Willie and Joe.