A couple of you have written to ask me what happened to comments you posted, or attempted to post. I've not deleted anything (interestingly, and gratifyingly, it's been over a week since I felt I had to delete anybody's posts over Rules of Conduct violations). Beliefnet had to tighten the anti-spam software somewhat, so if you put a hyperlink in the body of your post, you are likely to get caught in the net. Sometimes it lets me know via e-mail, but usually not. I just went through the spam bucket as far back as it will go -- 300 posts. Which is to say, 14 hours ago. Yes, over the last 14 hours, spambots have tried to post to the comboxes nearly 300 posts for pornography and various crap. There were exactly three posts from actual readers. If you put something up over 14 hours ago and it didn't post because of a link, sorry, it's irrecoverable.
I apologize for the inconvenience, but as you can tell, we are overwhelmed by robo-spam. Best way to make sure your comment gets posted is not to include a hyperlink in the text.
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I have posted several times over the last couple of weeks wherein I included a raw URL, that being a copy/paste from the Address bar without surrounding it with the "a href" html code to turn it into a link. At no point has such a post by me failed to show up right away when the combox refreshed.
It would be a shame if people were forced to stop providing URLs in support or explanation of their posts. For those of you experiencing the spam trap, try using only the raw URL.
http://www.beliefnet.com/about/rules.asp Read up on posting links etiquette in the Rules of Conduct (and we'll see if I'm made a liar in trying to post this.)
Yup, looks like my suggestion is a good one. ;-)
I had a about five or six of my posts go to the spam trap this past week. Most of them were posted without too much delay. I think that only one contained a link. Beliefnet's working on the problem.
If your software allows it, you might consider experimenting with a simple CAPTCHA. Those are pretty effective still at stopping spam.
The problem, Greg, is that Rod is really an invited guest here. Beliefnet does all the tech, including software decisions.
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