Spam Comments

After Tom noticed a missing comment of his in an earlier post, I'm reviewing the comments on the back end of the blog. I notice that a large number of comments by regulars -- and even by me! -- have been marked as spam and thus deleted from the ability to view them. 

Many of these are on sexual matters, especially as pertains to LGBT+ issues, but some of them are inexplicable. I assume this is part of Google's recent decision to review Blogger more closely, which had earlier resulted in some few of my posts being unpublished by them. Free speech, which is what internet blogging was initially all about, is under increasing pressure from tech companies that have decided it's too much trouble. 
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9 comments:

  1. Assistant Village Idiot1:27 PM

    I just had a post deleted from years ago, with the explanation that it violated malware and virus policies. There were no spam comments. There was a link in my text to my friend Dale Kuehne's book from about ten years ago, which had a lot of discussion of internet sexuality with it. I recall sections which would no longer be described as trans friendly, mostly noting that never before have individuals been able to define their sexuality without reference to some larger community. I took it out to see what happened and on appeal was immediately reinstated. I thought "This is how it works. For me, it's an old post that no one is going to ever read again anyway, but it is part of a set I don't want to break up, the whole story of our adopting the boys from Romania. Many parts. It's so easy to just put up with this rather than argue with machines." My guess is that somehow his book has been flagged and references to it are automatically being taken out, without much thought or reasoning behind the decision. For Google it is also just a way to avoid complaints. Fast forward ten years and Dale has slowly disappeared beneath the waves.

    I could be wrong. My post may have been flagged almost accidentally for some other reason and any resubmission would have gone through. I wish I had tested that first, frankly.

    Anyway, I'm doubling down by featuring his book even more prominently. A pointless gesture, but at least "Live Not By Lies."

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  2. E Hines3:56 PM

    I host my blog on Pair Networks (https://my.pair.com/ ) with a domain purchased through their pair Domains (https://www.pairdomains.com/ ). It's not free, but the price of the domain (which requires periodic renewal) isn't excessively priced. The hosting fee is quite low.

    Pair's customer support has been outstanding for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I've only rarely needed to use it, and second, they've been both extremely prompt and extremely successful in fixing my problem on those rare occasions when I have one.

    I use WordPress' blogging software (https://wordpress.com/ ), but I host it with Pair because WordPress' hosting site is a bit censorious for my taste. Also, WordPress' software a couple years ago underwent a major change/upgrade, but I've stayed with the original because changing, wholesale, basic software from one version to a radically different one is very painful for Luddites like me.

    Eric Hines

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  3. Tom9:32 AM

    I suppose which posts & comments get deleted is some sort of algorithmic thing.

    Pair Networks looks interesting. The my.pair.com goes to the login page, but just https://pair.com goes to their main page.


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  4. E Hines12:26 PM

    The my.pair.com goes to the login page....

    That's the way I have my login set up; I thought I'd edited that for this comment thread. Apparently the "my." doesn't belong; although I'm surprised there isn't also a "Create Account" akin to the main page's Get Started link.

    Eric Hines

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  5. Elise3:14 PM

    Thanks, Eric - I was about to ask if there was an alternative to Google.

    changing, wholesale, basic software from one version to a radically different one is very painful for Luddites like me.

    I made my living as a programmer/analyst and I hate software changes. I figure that's payback for all the times I inflicted updates on my users with hand-wave-y "it's great, you'll love it, you'll get used to it in no time." :+)

    Elise

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  6. E Hines4:38 PM

    You and me, both, Elise. My last job before I walked out the door was as a systems engineer and test director managing both hardware and software production (development was a different crew) for a defense contractor. When we were doing F-22 simulators, development and production occurred in parallel--simultaneously--and both occurred while final prototyping of the actual aircraft was in progress.

    That was some...interesting...software swap-outs. Fortunately for me, I only had to stand around and look official while others did the grunt work. And our customers only got the final--and only slowly changing product.

    Still painful.

    Eric Hines

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  7. Anonymous7:54 AM

    All they’re doing is rewriting history
    They thought you wouldn’t notice

    SoBuild your own platform.

    You’re a roadblock that they’re going to plow down sooner or later

    Mister Indian, don’t stay on the reservation

    Let’s see what Tucker does now that he is free of the reservation

    https://twitter.com/LegendaryEnergy/status/1650591567059746816/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1650591567059746816&currentTweetUser=LegendaryEnergy

    Greg


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  8. Anonymous8:11 AM

    Padre Perigrino is having a little problem with censorship

    Read his lament

    https://padreperegrino.org/2023/04/production-update/

    Greg

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  9. Elise9:51 AM

    Fortunately for me, I only had to stand around and look official while others did the grunt work.

    Fortunate, indeed. :+)

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