Of all the dubious titles that fall under the umbrella designation of “Blog Owner,” “Comment Moderator” is probably my least favorite. See, back when I was running off of Word Press’s own site, and not running my own site with a WP plug-in, I never had to worry about spam comments. They just kind of slipped into a net of Word Press’s own design, and if I did get one, I could just magically remove it.
Now, things are different. I have to go in and moderate my spam comments, because comments from you get sucked in there, sometimes. That’s not so bad, but if I want to avoid the comments, say on some really contentious post about a pop song that I didn’t realize was a holy text or something, I can’t do that. I have to go in and sort them out. And I approve them all, even if they’re nasty and rude, because I don’t want to be that disingenuous person who tries to make it seem like everyone believes the sun shines out of her ass.
There is one good part of spam comment moderating. I get to read all the spam comments. Usually, you can tell if it’s spam from the dummy email address, which will invariably have “Louis Vuitton” or “Oakley Cheap” in them. But sometimes, oh, sometimes, you strike spam comment gold:
outside Mike Rust’s ramshackle compound tucked into the base of Copper Butte, you can just make out Great Sand Dunes National Park, 60 miles east across Colorado’s expansive San Luis Valley. The dunes form when southwest winds whip up sand on the valley floor that was left behind when ancient lakes receded. Here a saddle in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains stalls the gusts, allowing the sands to accumulate.
That’s downright poetic, for something attached to a comment pushing knock-off Nikes.
Sometimes, spam shows up to make you feel good about yourself:
Hurrah, that’s what I was exploring for, what a material!
existing here at this webpage, thanks admin of this website.
You’re welcome, Spamtron3000! It’s nice to feel appreciated.
If you’re trying to plan an event, spam comments are there for you, too:
I’m not kidding myself. My voice alone is just an ordinary voice. What people come to see is how I use it. Invitations are your chance to make a great first impression on your guests. Use homemade rock themed invitations to set the party off on the right note. A simple ticket design is ideal for a rock party.
Huh. I’ve never thought of throwing a rock party. But the philosophical bent at the beginning of the comment makes me realize that if I use my ordinary voice, alone, I am never truly alone, because I have lots of friends at my party:
At other times, I’m disturbed by the dystopian hell-world these comments describe:
officials told Newswatch 16 this error around the time of the fire may lead to a personnel issue. Right now, they aren talking about what specifically happened. Should die. In their shows they tossed hula hoops into the audience, encouraging people to do the hoop dance (13). The new combination of music dance and fitness weight loss exercises (especially music videos) has made the fitness programs more appealing to the people. Especially, the people who were not internally motivated enough to do physical exercises routinely on a daily or weekly basis became more interested in doing physical exercise by joining the group dance fitness programs.
Wait, so… did “the hoop dance” start the fire? Are the people who are are doing the hoop dance the ones who “Should die.”? Or the people who are enforcing the hoop dancing? I’m so confused, and frankly, pretty frightened.
Other comments find my already dense, novel-length posts too brief for their liking:
I do trust all the ideas you have presented for your post.
They are very convincing and can definitely work.Nonetheless, the posts are very brief for novices.
Could you please lengthen them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.
Awww yeah. Spambot can’t get enough of the J.
The J, by the way, is like my version of “the D.” Because I’m Peggy Hill and I have to change everything to say my name in it.
Spam comments may seem pretty useless, but check this out:
North Korea relies heavily on China for food and fuel aid and many consumer products. Chinese companies are the main investors in North Korean mining, and the sides recently signed agreements on road building and jointly developing an industrial park on an island near the Chinese city of Dandong.
See? You didn’t know that before. I’m not sure if it’s true, and I don’t know when I’ll use this information, but now I know it! It may have replaced something important in the finite storage capacity of my brain–WHEE! I DON’T KNOW LONG DIVISION ANYMORE!–but it was free learnin’ and you can’t get much better than that.
The next time you see me on twitter, raging about the sometimes ridiculous, pretentious, often hateful and degrading comments I have to plow through to separate the real people wheat from the spam chaff, don’t worry about me. I have a bunch of delightful spam to experience. And a rock party to throw.