little. yellow. different. A weblog by Ernie Hsiung

what’s pissing me off about you

Okay, not you, the person reading this message per say. Just some of you.

• In the past couple of months, I’ve had a comments from spammers. At first it was a trickle, an insurance site here, a girl-on-horse website there. Lately though, the spammers commenting on my weblog have gone way up, and I’ve had to spend a good twenty minutes a day manually removing ads for everything from herbal breast enhancements to insurance to the states of Texas and Nevada. (This might have to do with the fact that this weblog has now been linked off of Earthlink’s blogger page.)

• The final straw is when one commenter wrote one-sentence comments on ten of my most recent posts, like “oh yes that is funny” or “you are right i see that a lot” and left their website. The website in question? A “viagra magazine.”

• Now, I make no regular income off this weblog. Running this weblog actually costs me money, $30 a month, roughly $360 a year. (Yes, I know I could probably pay less money for a web host. Chalk it up to having no time and not wanting to go thorugh the effort.) But when someone actually has the nerve to try to make a buck off my work, and to not even get a chunk of it? Oh, hell no.

Play nice in the comments, kids. Otherwise there might not be a weblog anymore for the spammers to post on.

ironically, this is the first time i’ve ever read a post of yours that has not been commented on

you stupid fucking spammers. i’ve been reading ernies posts for years, and if he has to shut it down because of you stupid ass greedy fucking jews, then im gonna huntyou down and slices your sex organs into a nice minced meat pie for E-dawg to much on. you stupid fucking cunts, im gonna go sharpen my knife.
BIG UP TO ERNIE!

you are right i see that a lot.

On a related note, you can buy Xanax for really cheap at my website.

http://www.girlsonxanaxridinghorseys.comz

-ph.

There has GOT to be a way for Ernie to make bucks off of LYD.

H1, 1′m 4mb3r. P1ea5e v/s17 my s1/e.

Ryan,
I just read Ernie’s post and thought how spammers have to be the lowest form of life. Then I saw your comment, and you reminded me that there are anti-Semites like you in this world, truly the lowest life form. That you could even write what you did is pathetic. Get some help, you sick asshole.

Time for Google Adsense?

I also agree with Jess’s post, what does being greedy have to do with being a jew, I am a Jew, and I also enjoy Ernies brilliant weblog, creativity and wit just oozes from this guy. So on that note, do get some help you sick asshole.

PS - You rock ernie!

Filter comments through spamassassin before committing them to the DB? Not sure how effective this would be but it might help a bit.

Ernie, I feel your pain.

I made a really touching post, and months later I notice that someone’s made a comment about it. I go to read it and find out it’s an ad for a penis enlargment firm (*giggle* firm *giggle). I looked back through the comments and found out they’d left several. I edited them out (not deleting them, but removing the URL and putting the contact Email and reason I edited the comment in the comments place.) I then sent them a nasty email of my own, and since then they haven’t posted another spam, at least for that company.

For those of you who don’t know about Movable Type, when you log in, you see the 5 most recent post, the 5 most recent pings, and the 5 most recent comments. It’s really hard to get comments by a blogger if they log in more often that visitors post, but unfortunately I bet Ernie doesn’t.

Oh. Jeez. The burden of being The Ernie.

BTW, mini-blog comment: Why hasn’t Robert Smith changed his look in the past 15 years? He could really use a Queer Eye For The Washed Up In The Closet New Wave Guy makeover. Creepy. That picture made me feel dirty and not in the good sense.

Take out the “URL” field in the comments.

Mentalized had a good post a few weeks ago about ways to improve MT’s comment notification to make it easier to delete spammy comments. It’s worth a look.

i hate to say this, but is pulling the URL box from the comments section and disallowing html from comments a valid option? I’d miss doing links n tags n such, but sometimes we have to take away everyone’s toys if we’re beaten up by them.

Sadly, making requests isn’t going to stop comment spam, especially not the “10 in a row” kind…it’s bots doing it, and they’re not going to listen.

THAT SAID! Now that you use MT, there’s a plug-in on the way to save the day! http://www.jayallen.org/journey/2003/10/mtblacklist_almost_ready

Or you could just do like Dooce did: axe the commenting feature, not the blog. Then again, maybe this is just an excuse.

Hey, Ernie…

I don’t know how modular your site is, but it’d be pretty easy to make up one of those random image things where you see a picture of a pass code, and you have to type it in. Works pretty good on bots. And I’m sure your loyal fans wouldn’t mind typing a few more characters for the opportunity to post on your halloed tome

360 dollars for 365 days…I can’t believe I’m going to be late for work for this but…http://www.cafeshops.com/bdub.8008933

note: a portion of the proceeds will be used to support the boneless children foundation. another portion will be used to support Ernie’s LYD addiction

don’t worry ernie!

i just got a note from the minister of petroleum in nigeria, and i’m about to enter into a business arangement GUARANTEED to make me 5.6 million dollars! as soon as i have the money, i will host your site for FREE!

i’m a giver. that’s just what i do.

Ernie…even if you don’t have the time to switch from a host that’s $30, you need to make it! You’re spending so much, and you could be spending so little! I know you said you don’t want to do it or don’t have the energy or whatnot, but you’d save a whole lotta money.

barring that, the spammers have gotten to me too. I’ve tried setting up the inline comments blocking thing that weeds out bad spammer people, but I failed miserably at it, considering it doesn’t work.There needs to be some sort of auth thing implemented in weblogs that doesn’t require login but still does some sorta check. With my luck it’s not possible

why yes that is funny. I do see that alot.

Wow that’s fucking wack. As for greedy jews? ouch, stop guzzling the haterade, unless your jewish and trying to be funny making fun of ignorant stereotypes. Gotta point that shit out when commenting.
It’s like people who mis-use the word ghetto or gay in day to day life when they’re trying to explain simple shit like a broken chair.

I wonder if you are the first to recieve spam comments? This might be the next level in spamming, attack bloggers through comments. Beware yall!

If worst comes to worst, just take the commenting feature down. We’ll all go through comment withdrawal, but eventually we’ll recover. And then we’ll start sending you e-mails with our comments. And then we’ll find out where you live, and we’ll hunt you down and tie you up and scream our comments at you until you break down and cry like a girl. Oh yes we will.

james seng released a image recognition plugin yesterday to prevent comments from automated spammers. you can see it in action at my site. when jay allen releases his plugin, i’m probably going to use that too to cover the manual spammers.

Dude. I’m with Aristan. Post an update, and post something in the form of “And by the way, if you feel the same way about spammers as I do, then you can send them comments at the following e-mail address…” It worked for R*K Millholland of the “Something Positive” website… Revenge is sweet.

you are right i see that a lot

oh I would hate to lose the comments, if it came to that. Wil Wheaton’s weblog wasn’t the same without the comments. thankfully his have returned. I actually had to abandon several email accounts because of Spam. it’s annoying and frustrating. I remember when I got yelled at for sending an email chain letter back 15 years ago. now that’s a tame form of spam compared to all the breast and penis enlargement emails that get delivered to all of us by the boatloads every hour of every day.

Don’t make money from your site? Need I remind you of the “save ernie” fund?

Unfortunately, those visual verification thingies will mean blind and low-vision people won’t be able to comment. There needs to be an accessible solution, but I don’t know what it is.

By the way, would you like a larger penis, and some Viagra to keep it hard while you look at our pictures of barely legal nymphomaniacs.

And I agree, that Jew comment was out of line, Ryan.

Sheesh, I’ve been getting a barrage of these comment spams, and I want to poke them in the eye with a stick. Or better, a cattle prod.

I think I’m gonna install image recognition. Seems like the best choice at the moment, because spending an hour deleting comments about “Teenage Lolitas Ready for You”, is just not my idea of a fun time.

Being an A-lister is such a bitch.

I have started getting these, too. I use the .htaccess file in Apache to restrict certain IP addresses (and blocks) from accessing any content on my domain.

It might seem like a pain in the ass, but I see where these people are coming from, and then add their IP address (possibly even block, depending) to the .htaccess file. It at least prevents them from doing it multiple times after the first time.

We’ve been seeing a lot of comment spamming at work this weekend from the IP range 209.210.176.xx. Might want to throw that into an .htaccess deny from line to cut down a bit on the spam.

Honey, I know all about the spammers. My URI’s “www.blackgayblogger.com” for cripes sake. Just be grateful you’re not getting hate mail. And blocking IP’s with the .htaccess deny line has been splendifabulous in the fight.

I have some 20% Off Typepad Discount Codes left. I believe they are good until the end of this month. You would have to covert everything over to Typepad though. They have an import tool you can use.

I think there is now such a thing as blog spamming bots. Argh! I get a few nasty ads from time to time. They suck!

Ernie,

Here is a link I found for you. Maybe it will help you. It talks about spamming blogs.

http://cheerleader.yoz.com/archives/000849.html

Bastards. I’ve been dealing with the same thing, with a sudden surge over the weekend. I’m gonna check out some of the suggestions from the link above and see if that helps.

I used to edit the remarks to the effect of, “My original message was much lamer than the webmistress saying I eat horse feces.” Eventually, I tired of that and just started banning IPs.

Man, this stinks. I’ve gotten a single one of these spammer links on my site, certainly not enough to make me remove comments, but other folks I know have had to do so. Is this what advertising over the internet has been reduced to? What the hell kind of response to these people expect from posting links in the comments section of a website like this, or mine, or anyone else whose subject isn’t porn to begin with?

Good luck Ernie.

Wow, I’ve never heard about this until now… I didn’t even think spammers would go so low to advertise something. Jeez!

Oh yes I agree completely its huge guys 1knv745fghvfnf8 dkrggsrsf xlwcdj e473jd

Love ya, babe. I don’t make a dime, either, unless you count semen.

Not the blog! Just the comments!

*stops hyperventalating and reads other comments*

I think those ideas about taking out the URL line and disallowing HTML are good ones

Hmm. So what are those of us who DON’T get spammers on our own site comments doing wrong? Darn it — I want to get penis enlargement ads, too…and yeah, that viagra rox my wizzorld…waah…

Thanks on b/half of all for not letting it get you down, Ernie.

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