You’re kidding, right?
Yesterday I received this comment on one of the main subpages of our blog:
“Hey Mike – how about a post telling us readers about ZTC – What kind of boat is she, where did you acquire it, how was that experience, what have you learned, What have you had to upgrade for the cruising life…”
My first reaction was “You’re kidding, right? You mean something ‘in addition’ to the previous 3 years of posts? Perhaps try reading the blog a bit before you comment!”
In retrospect, seeing that the comment was from someone who has some involvement with a catamaran website, I can see that he was simply trying to get a link back to his site by posting here. Or at least I hope that’s what it was, otherwise it’s just plane dumb or lazy.
And in case you don’t have time to read through the entire 917 posts that are online here, there is of course a search field available in the right hand side bar —–>
Nice picture! Isn’t hard to live full time on that small boat in the foreground? Haha.
That is a nice photo, isn’t it? It was taken by our friend Carl Grooms.
http://www.carlgrooms.com
He could have at least thanked you for your content and remarked at how useful it was for his studies. Then again his comment could have been in Russian.
🙂
Search schmerch….I am only here for the pictures of Rebecca! 😛
I don’t blame you.
You and every other male cruiser and wannabe lol. My gripe is that us females need equal time pictures of Mike – c’mon Rebecca pony up to the camera for us!
Deb
http://www.theretirementproject.blogspot.com
I have the luxury of having a very-easy-to-look-at subject for my photos.
My own experience, Mike, and that of most friends who run websites, is that simple spambots outnumber human commenters by about 100 to 1. Thankfully, most bots are easy to catch with automated traps, although it’s always a bit of a downer to look at a site’s stats and see the orange “spam blocked” line so far above the green “comments accepted”. Human spammers are a lot harder to catch than robot spammers, of course…. it’s a problem that has plagued every online group since, well, almost as long as online groups have existed. Comments will show up that are close enough to on-topic that they aren’t immediately suspicious, and they pass CAPTCHA, but they’re nevertheless loaded with affiliate links to sketchy sites.
I love that little outboard/rowing skiff. One of my neighbours is almost done restoring a very similar boat. (And yes, you can cruise on something this small, provided you’re OK with pitching a tent on shore each evening- my boat isn’t that much bigger, and we try to get a few multi-day cruises in each year.)
Although we do get some spam, and have a spam filter in place, we happily get at least as many real comments as we do bad ones (although they come in spurts).
The message I quoted was definitely human spam. I thought it funny which is why I posted it.
Well I’m not trying to be a smart ass, but my first response is to say ” you don’t walk in his shoes” You never know what has promptd this type of “are you kidding” question. A medical issue, dementia, no literary skills, time…or just being dumb. I’m not sure, well i am sure. I’ve found myself asking similar questions on (knitting) blogs wanting quicker answers to questions. Post stroke has left me with a decreased ability for concentration which would discourage me from reading some 900 previous posts. Maybe cut the person some slack and answer their specific and immediate questions in an email and gently explaining, you have been blogging for 3 years and suggest they might spend some time reading back. Just sayin’
In other cases you might have been right, Jennifer. In this particular case, I’m sorry to say that you are not. It was spam. He has a commercial catamaran-related website and he was simply trying to draw traffic to it. I am 100% certain of this.