I’ve posted about comment spam before.  My feelings on the subject haven’t changed, but I was introduced to a new version of it.  Well, it’s new to me anyway.

The “Liberal Media” posting I made a few days ago has attracted a lot of spam-like comments.  It seems like some people are out there trolling the internet for hot button issues – and the subject of the “liberal bias of American media” is certainly a hot one right now – to fill up blog comments promoting their whatever.

Shortly after the posting went up it started attracting these sorts of self-serving comments.  In fact, one “person” from one IP address posted more than 20 comments to the blog entry in one hour.  The comments were fairly inane and not at all related to the subject matter to which they purported to respond.  For example:

• “I like your site and wanted to know if you would be interested in exchanging blogroll links.”
• “Great post. I will read your posts frequently. Added you to the RSS reader.”
• “I’ve been reading along for a while now. I just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up the good work.”
• “You know, I have to tell you, I really enjoy this blog and the insight from everyone who participates. I find it to be refreshing and very informative. I wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, I felt it was about time I posted, I”  (this one was cutoff0

The pattern over and over in the comments was one or two sentences with phrases like “great post” or “enjoy this blog.”  Not a single one actually addressed the content of the blog posting.

Now, I probably would not have become suspicious one “light weight” comment post from an IP address or person; but dozens just give away that these are probably not legitimate.

I’ve sent emails to some of the “people” listed in the comment postings asking for them to confirm that they actually intended to write such meaningless comments.  No one has responded yet, so that would indicate these are machine generated.

The comments will sit in the queue for awhile on the off chance that a person really did want them to appear.  But I’m not going to hold my breath.