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Charles Dickens began writing in syndication in monthly magazines. Bleak House was written in about eighteen installments. The blogs of today are the magazines of yesteryear. WordPress offered and outlet - and an opportunity for you to be recognized by others. Perhaps one might be grateful for the opportunity to express oneself. I am.

Well written and well said but what if you woke up one day and could not write because the “enforced” spam machine suddenly and randomly labels you as a “Spammer”.

I realised last week just how many people have been through this and its a very widespread problem which we don’t think about and don’t care about until it happens to us personally.

I am happy to write…. when I am allowed to.. Last week Akismet censored me from even writing on my own blog.

WordPress eventually apologised for overeagerness by its machine but that doesn’t help swallow the bitter pill.

lol. oh for real? what company? write me! i love xanga but its probably to girly for you. when are you coming to visit us???? just moved to new haven, great city, great clubs, bars and restaurants. so common!!!!

Hey Paul! Sorry to hear about the SPAM problems - we missed you the last week but really congratulations on the film. Hope that is just the start for you. Don’t give up.

I thank wordpress.
It has created a shining man from a raw diamond.
Now, finally, into his dream and his writing will follow.
I wish now he would have met me instead.

Sometimes I love to read the spam…just for a change of pace. But it’s even better when the boss is snooping over my shoulder when I’m on break.

I have had an increased amount of spam lately which had me fearing they were writers. But I thought they were working out the bugs with Akismet?
Sounds like, though, you aren’t hurting. A film rewrite seems more than fair for a week of not getting on WP.

I guess they are working out the Spam issue.. but for a while there I was one of the bugs. To be fair.. the script re-write would have stopped me writing here anyway.. so it was a fair trade.

It was just annoying to watch my comments get swallowed whole like a sacrifical lamb and then not even be able to post in the end.. .

Cowgalutah… why am i not surprised????

According to the spam bots, I am a Greek heiress whose life necessitates quantities of drugs related to sex, infertility, and extreme depression.
My readership hovers in the low twenties, so statistically my spam filter catches just the spam. Although, recently, I found my own comments, responding to comments, in the spam filter.
Makes one wonder.

You’re writing a movie Paul?!! I can’t wait to see it. Congrats.

I’m so glad your back Paul! Indeed, when I saw your comments in my spam box, I screamed with rage and punched some babies. Seriously though, I’ve now learned that if I don’t check the filter, I may start to think that my blog BFF’s don’t dig me anymore, and that will create some MAJOR relationship awkwardness.

WordPress, don’t make relationships awkward…it makes people sad, and it destroys lives.

And listen, I think it’s amazing that you’re writing a movie. Sometimes I get so frustrated when I see all this crap that gets printed or published by these hack writers. It pisses me off, ’cause I KNOW that these douches are getting exposure/getting paid, and yet I’m not experiencing the least bit of joy from reading their crap. And all the while I know that there are amazing writers living here, whose talent is miles ahead of so much that’s out there (yourself, Abarclay12, Mister Peace, to name a few). Anyway, it’s really up-lifting to hear your good news, I’m so proud of you!

-Romi

Stupid Askimet. Would it help if I went over and kicked their asses for you? Cuz I would.

So great to hear about your movie endeavor, Paul. Nicely done and definitely a fair trade for not being able to blog. We are sooo jealous.

Trials and tribulations of Askimet - new topic for a post? More fodder?

I wonder though if it’s askimet’s fault or the fault of someone who mistakenly marked one of your comments as spam and it went from there.

I’ve found my own comments on my own blog in askimet spam as well - not nice but fixable. I spoze my problem wasn’t as severe as yours though.

Glad you got a chance at writing that’s gonna pay in your time away but glad to see you back. Welcome home.

~Peace~

Goodness! I never look in my spam holder anymore. I just delete all, without even thinking about it. I guess, I should at least look at it every now and again.

Frankly, I don’t understand the real spammers. Why do they write:”Great post, I agree. Viagra. Viagra.”

Are they actually making money from drugs?

Do they spend time writing the post, or do they have a robot machine?

Oh, well.

“Great post, I agree. Steroids. Steroids.”

–Tracy

Hi Paul

I could not agree with you more. I was locked out of my own account at wordpress, Int he end I terminated. I prefer the format at wordpress but I will just stick to blogger for now…though it is far from perfect.

Hope your film project goes well…The movie business is so unpredictable. High concepts, internal/external conflicts…Best of luck my friend!

Romi you need to cut out that punching babies routine.. You can punch me instead.. I would even pay you for it.. but lets not make that routine too public.
I will be in the tent..

Hey Ruby.. It actually started right here on my own page. When I leave comments I am always vain enough to check them once I have submitted them and the first time i could not do that was right here… and from that point I made the matter worse by trying to leave comments on ten other pages.. by which time i was in Akismet’s Sweat Shop printing t-shirts. But how can my own page decided that the “author” is a spammer..? I think its a government conspiracy personally.

And sweet Miss Barclay or is it Ms Barclay.. women hate that don’t that? I mean when do you stop call a woman Miss and start calling her Ms. But I am getting off track.. It was a film adaptation and not writing from scratch. I just did a re-write… then again saying “just did a….” - it was 28,000 words or so and I only had four days to do it in. That was the challenge. Need I need to order two new eyes…… Hope your German is up to scratch.

Forays Into Sanity.. if you are a Greek heiress please feel free to take seat. I always have room for more…

OBS - Yes please… They cannot be kicked enough. You know what with the jokes and fun to one side. I love what everyone here does and that is just to write. I actually thought about writing a blog for over two years before getting going and all the while didn’t think i had what it takes to sit amongst such a noble crew like you guys. I can’t have breakfast without running through as many blogs as possible, and last week was a kick in the short and curly’s. It felt rude reading but not being able to comment. Thanks for the support.

and Tracy… you are so right. Thing is I never had one piece of Spam until I spammed myself. It has to be that damned blog i wrote on Vulva Original. You see when a chick writes about vagina’s its ok.. but when a GUY does it.. its pornographic.

Now I get spam but only in spanish.. and the only word i understand is “viagra” but WHY would i want Spanish viagra - is it any better than the English variety?

buy viagra - buy more of it now - I dont like S.pam Filters either - I want to buy windows, via*gra, Pen*s extensions etcc pp….

if there is no s*pam filter you get a lot of sp*am come on buy more viagra - *lol* adobe PRO our price US $ 79.95 Retail price - US $ 449.00 Save US $ 369.05 check it out…..

Hey Paul, hope you don’t take my comments too badly - just wanted to illustrate what happens without a SpamFilter Akismet did catch more than 640 Spam messages from my blog and I am happy. I understand that you are frustrated as what had happened to you but I bet you would not want to live without a Spam Filter for more then a few hours….

it tried to make you spam on my blog but i said “Oh HELL NAW” and de-spammed you right then and there. one small step for my blog but a huge step for bloggers everywhere!

Hey André - you might be right but a degree of self control would not go amiss. In this day and age that should not be too hard to apply. And if not better customer service would also be good. If you visit the Akismet site you have to crawl laboriously through their “we are so good” statements when I would have preferred customer service right at the top of their agenda.

When things go wrong help should always be close at hand. In my case - WordPress was closed for twenty four hours and Akismet to this date did not answer my email. In the forum I quickly realised I was not the only one getting incarcerated.

Hey Joebec… actually I went voluntarily into your spam folder..

But babies are such easy targets…BUT…if I get to punch you instead AND get paid for punches landed… Hmm…okay, I’ll stop punching babies…(can I still punch kids though? Kids should be alright, no? They can fend for themselves…

can you access blogspot where you are, they do not seem to pratt about in the same way as wordpress.
and its free.
You write beautifully and I love your words, so don’t let the bastards drag you down and all that.Your readers need you!!
px

I ask myself why, I have not met this man today for the first time…

Romi we gotta talk counseling for you girl…

Paul, do you know what triggered it to begin with?

I always check my spam box because I noticed early on that sometimes non-spam ends up there, so I unspam it right away when I find it. I remember one person (this goes back a while) kept appearing in my spam box, which was a bit weird because I couldn’t see what would be triggering akismet, so I emailed wordpress about it (they keep 9-5 PST (California) hours, even for emailing, which is difficult if you’re on teh other side of the world, but their support forum is pretty informative and helpful in my experience) and they said that akismet would learn after a time or two, and it did seem to.

I poked around on the support forums at the time though, and I remember reading a story like yours, and I think (like you) people either don’t notice right away and make more comments, or try to make comments anyway I guess not realizing they could harm their “spam” standing until the original is cleared up, since it is culmative - akismet learns in each direction, so if you get treated as spam on a couple blogs, it then thinks you’re legitimately spam or something.

I know if you put one or two links in a comment, you’re more likely to be treated as spam too.

Anyway, I’d be interested to know (if you know) what sparked it originally? And what exactly you had to do to get off the bad list?

I had thought it was a really rare thing to have happen to people, but maybe I’d better be prepared anyway! Regardless, I’m sorry you had to suffer through that, though sounds like it was good timing to have a built in procrastination-helper out of reach! Congrats on the movie script job!

I’ll begin counselling, just as soon as you complete a 30-day “Crocs De-Tox” program; and I don’t mean some half-assed re-hab stint, ala Britney going to “re-hab”, but really spending 30 days making-out with dudes in the scenic shrubbery…you gotta COMMIT, and then we’ll talk about my counselling.

Thanks.

Never commit a crime on a Friday before a holiday weekend. The judge just ain’t there. Wait until Tuesday to do your dastardly deed.

Never die in an horrific car crash during a holiday weekend. You will just be a number in the newspaper and not a name. IF you still wish to die that way, wait two more weeks.

If you put up a picture of a naked girl on your blog with only perfume blocking the parts… you may be seen as a possible A-kiss-me threat and put in a spam holding tank for the weekend.

All rise for the Honorable AJ A-Kiss-Me. Spam Court is now in session.

–Tracy

Thanks Tracy for that wonderful insight. But true it is. That post became the bane of my existence here… But thanks for the memories on the don’t commit a crime on a Friday…. I lost count how many people I encountered who thought it was cool to get arrested for a night until they realised it was for four nights and they would be missing work on Tuesday without the chance to call in.

Romi i just heard that you are a secret Crocs wearer.. is that true? In bright pink? I might have to put YOU in my sin-bin for the weekend.

Deb.. It is all something to do with my post Scratch ‘n Sniff. At least that is what I think. Maybe the content was too risque.. I don’t know. I wrote the post in the evening, the next morning tried to reply to comments on there and they were not appearing. I cheked the spam filter but sometimes “potential spam” does not show up for days so i was not there either and having not experienced this before was totally confused on the Miss Teen South Carolina level. From that point on it was a one way ticket to hell.

I tried leaving comments elsewhere not realising I was making the problem worse and WordPress Customer Support had taken the off. Literally. “Customer Support is not available today - please try again tomorrow”. I tried the forums and realised i was not the only one having the same problem but the only advice people were giving was “DON’T leave more comments if yours are going into the Spam filter”.. well too late for that.

Then i tried writing a new post to explain myself.. and that disappeared too. I was in Akismet hell. Who then i fired off a ranting and raving email too, which they chose not to answer. WordPress got the same and they replied four days later apologising and telling me everything was all back to normal and i was being released.

So in the end it seems.. it all started on my own page.. which is what made it so infuriating and is what many other people have complained about. How can your own page decide that the “author” is a spammer on his / her own posts?

Very strange. But like I said. It was out of one hand and into the other as I didn’t have time to get annoyed instead picking up a writing job - nice trade.
Incidentally, my “reply comments” were yesterday twice thrown into the Spam filter on my own page.. so the bugs are not sorted out just yet.

You did NOT just say I wear bright pink crocs…did you? Grrr…on an unrelated side-note, remember how I get to punch you, and you’ll pay for it? Well THIS JUST IN: I’ll drop kick you in the face as well, and guess what, free of charge!

PS: “confused on the Miss Teen South Carolina Level”…hahaha, outstanding

you went voluntarily into my spam folder… oh, screw you then LOL

I love the akismet filter. It does on occassion catch a valid comment, but that’s the way of the world.

I could have sworn there was an option to turn it off. I went to find it for you, but I couldn’t. It may not be there anymore, or I may be confused.

I’m confused kind of alot.

hey there awesome site!
hey hey hey
this is me and me only yo yo
123tytytyywywyw

hey there this is a really super site!

I had the same problems with Akismet and blogged about them here: http://smartstartup.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/08/automattic-kism.html

This company doesn’t care about its users.

Wow! I can only say wow. I too chose this year to share my writing, I too have been doing it since I can remember. You are an inspiration to keep writing, plugging away. Great luck on the screen play. Good for you. Veronica

very interesting.
i’m adding in RSS Reader