spam central

Subconscious Not Even Safe from Spam

By Courtney Lowery, 4-25-06

I've been carefully watching our precious comment fields get violated by spammers more and more in the last few weeks. I've tried to be vigilant in deleting them when they and their links to discount Viagra pop up, but it's happening site-wide now and just about every freaking minute so I'm struggling to keep up.

It's a mission I've been happy to accept, but with each spammer I spot, I get more and more infuriated. It's gotten to the point that it has now permeated even the depths of my subconcious. Last week, I had a dream, a nightmare really, that I was taking an application from someone who wanted to be an editor for New West. We had a nice interview and I was impressed enough to offer her the job on the spot. Then, as she accepted, I looked down at her resume in my hands and it all turned to urls to discount pharmaceutical and software sites. One by one, each heading turned to things like, "Hello, nice site, check out mine ..." followed by chunks of urls and code and spam and names of sex-enhancing drugs.

I woke up totally freaked out. I told Jonathan the next day. He says I'm internalizing too much. He's probably right.

There are lots of ways we can mitigate the spamming and we're looking into several options. Perhaps the most effective method is simply requiring commentors to register, but that's not really an option for us. Our comments fields are where some of New West's best magic happens -- open, honest, intelligent and (sometimes) civil discussions about real issues facing the Rocky Mountain West. We just don't want to screw around with that. Hopefully, we'll have a solution in place in the coming weeks, but until then, I'll continue to seek and destroy -- both awake and asleep.

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.