Apparently this is now a Religious Blog
Online, Rants and Raves - 11 Comments » - Posted on November, 6 at 7:22 pm
Upon reading that title I bet quite a few of you just halted and said “WHAT?!”, “NANI?!”, “QUE?!”, or some other derivative. I know I did that when I saw the string of over a 100 comments marked as spam or awaiting moderation today.
I was tempted to approve them just so people could see the stupidity of others, but I didn’t really want to invite more stupidity and opted instead to just laugh and delete them all. I must confess though, it was quite entertaining to read through the comments awaiting moderation. Apparently two comments got approved last night (early this morning?) when I just about to doze off and just started approving comments without really reading them. These two comments sparked quite the debate.
One spam comment, which was worded well enough that in my sleep fogged mind it didn’t jump out as spam when I skimmed the comments, no million links or anything, and I sadly didn’t even stop to think that it didn’t fit with the post, where I talked about my History of Christianity exam, they commented on since I didn’t even read it.
The spam comment essentially praised me for having the guts to defend the faith against naysayers and how my soul would be saved as a result. It concluded that speaking my thoughts and promoting the faith would save the unclean masses and specifically stated “queers and degenerates”. If you read my post, you can see it in way promotes Christianity. In fact, I’m Agnostic leaning towards Atheist. So you can really see how that comment was well and truly left field for this blog. The comment provided a url to Ebay auto auctions, clearly spam. Sometime after I approved this comment, but before I finished going through the list someone else saw this comment, grew highly offended, and launched an attack on the commenter. I sadly must have approved this comment as well because it was live.
When I came to my blog earlier to check comments and post a new entry I was rather perplexed to see such a high number. I approved a few of the more recent comments (none that were related to the aforementioned) then returned and pledged to go throw the list. I’m amazed how many people could get so bent out of shape over what was clearly spam. I had the initial angry retort comment, followed by a few Christian supporters of the first comment, then a slew of just angry name calling. 
What got me is that almost every person who commented either called this one of the most supportive religious blogs on the net or the most hateful and bigoted religious blog.
Did anybody actually bother to read the post they were commenting on? 
So I guess I should apologize for not paying attention and letting an insulting spam comment get through. But at the same time I’m rather irritated that people couldn’t even bother to read my post, put 2 and 2 together, let alone be respectful. 
Posted in Online, Rants and Raves | 11 Comments »
Joana the Goddess has 1004 comments
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In general people are stupid. What my guess is that people read or skimmed your post. Then started reading the comments to see if they could flame someone.
People saw the flamers and got involved with that and really ignored your post all together. It is good to have dialog on your site, in the comments section, but flamers need to just move on.
I let flames slide to a degree, just as long as there is not name calling, and such, I’m good with people flaming me, just not mu guest.
One thing I’ve noted, when it comes to something that offends people, they go off about it without a second thought. Myself, there have a been a few blog posts I’ve seen lately that have made me want to sound off in the comments, but I didn’t. The only time I’ve ever sounded off on the comments instead of the post is when the comments in question were personally attacking the blogger for something she said.
But people as a whole really show no respect. After all, if they did, we wouldn’t have the spam comments in the first place, would we?
LOL
Wow, people are so stupid sometimes, or well most times. I never talk about my faith on my blog unless needed because I know a bunch of bible thumbing people will say I’m going to hell. and that’s just wrong.
As for the spam comment, its kind of funny. not in haha funny but ironic.
hahahaha!! Thats why I never approve comments late at night or early in the morning… I might let something slip.
Though, it could have been good for your blog fueling a heated debate like that.
Mouseclone,
I’m not very tolerant of flames. Constructive criticism and discussion? Yes. Flames, name calling? no. Frankly, the way people went off on it I really have to concur with your assessment, they were just trolling for trouble and lucked upon it.
Charity,
Same here. I’ve never been a big fan of the flame wars people like to do in comments, and when I started to get some and a lot of spam I put my comments on moderation.
If something really irks me, I might comment on it and punch holes in their logic, but usually I get pissed and close out the window. I might blog about it and vent my feelings, but even then that’s pretty rare, and I certainly avoid linking to them if I can too.
Karyn,
Yeah, at first when I tracked down the first comments that triggered everything I laughed. But after reading another dozen of them where they insulted myself, commenters, my blog, and everything in the known universe I just got tired and annoyed.
mcangeli,
Believe me when I say I learned my lesson. I was very tempted to leave the comments, just to laugh at and see if they would spark more commentary but I didn’t really want the trouble that would inevitably come with it.
I must say though, according to my stats my traffic really spiked for a bit there!
I bet it did, however, there’s two things I was taught to never discuss with others, religion and politics…. for good reason…
Wow, how, weird. I mean I get the spam post thing, cause they go by keywords but actual people should know better and be a little less dumb. Yikes.
…one of the first things I do when I read comments on a post is check for spammy URLs. Honestly, as a reader, it’s pretty much required. A lot of blogs that run on non-Akismetable platforms (Cutenews, etc.) don’t have spam protection and you have to learn to read.
The kicker is that they didn’t read the post at all. I just love that, don’t you? When people totally don’t read the post and have a big ridiculous opinion.
When I get comments from people that didn’t read, I get bitchy with the comment email responder and bang out a snippy response. I’m amazed that you have the patience to explain what happened. Hats off to Joana!