Only a Test
June 25, 2012

Emergency Broadcast SystemThis is a test. This website is conducting a test of the Emergency Spam-fighting System. This is only a test. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

In the last few weeks, the spammers have hit my site with a vengeance. My blog is self hosted, so I don't have the might of Blogger or WordPress to swat away those annoying flies and have been getting around 500 spam comments a day. Since I don't have a penis to enlarge or need a payday loan, it's super frustrating and time consuming to delete all of them. I really don't want to add CAPTCHA because everyone thinks they are so annoying, but I have to do something.

I consulted my good friend Google and found this service called Mollum, which I've added to my site. If it does everything it promises, it will be so awesome. When a comment is submitted, it is immediately analyzed: if it's definitely identified as valid, then it is automatically posted; if it's definitely identified as spam, it is automatically deleted (or sent to a moderation queue like I'm having it do while I evaluate its accuracy); but if the system is unsure whether it's spam or not, then it displays a CAPTCHA for the user to identify.

I've had it installed for two days so far, and it's doing an excellent job isolating out the spam comments. But now I want to make sure I won't get false positives or even false unsures because that would mean my awesome commenters are getting hit with annoying CAPTCHAs. So if you've made it this far, I would really appreciate your help with testing this.

1. Write a comment like you normally would. Either pretend I just said something truly witty and inspiring or something really idiotic you disagree with.

2. Press the Save button for the comment and notice whether it posts automatically or if it asks you to identify a CAPTCHA.

3. Reply to your own comment and tell me whether it automatically posted or if it displayed a CAPTCHA.

Thank you so much for helping me! I really hope this works as promised.

This concludes this test of the Emergency Spam-fighting System. And now back to your regularly scheduled program….

Emergency Broadcast SystemThis is a test. This website is conducting a test of the Emergency Spam-fighting System. This is only a test. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

In the last few weeks, the spammers have hit my site with a vengeance. My blog is self hosted, so I don't have the might of Blogger or WordPress to swat away those annoying flies and have been getting around 500 spam comments a day. Since I don't have a penis to enlarge or need a payday loan, it's super frustrating and time consuming to delete all of them. I really don't want to add CAPTCHA because everyone thinks they are so annoying, but I have to do something.

I consulted my good friend Google and found this service called Mollum, which I've added to my site. If it does everything it promises, it will be so awesome. When a comment is submitted, it is immediately analyzed: if it's definitely identified as valid, then it is automatically posted; if it's definitely identified as spam, it is automatically deleted (or sent to a moderation queue like I'm having it do while I evaluate its accuracy); but if the system is unsure whether it's spam or not, then it displays a CAPTCHA for the user to identify.

I've had it installed for two days so far, and it's doing an excellent job isolating out the spam comments. But now I want to make sure I won't get false positives or even false unsures because that would mean my awesome commenters are getting hit with annoying CAPTCHAs. So if you've made it this far, I would really appreciate your help with testing this.

1. Write a comment like you normally would. Either pretend I just said something truly witty and inspiring or something really idiotic you disagree with.

2. Press the Save button for the comment and notice whether it posts automatically or if it asks you to identify a CAPTCHA.

3. Reply to your own comment and tell me whether it automatically posted or if it displayed a CAPTCHA.

Thank you so much for helping me! I really hope this works as promised.

This concludes this test of the Emergency Spam-fighting System. And now back to your regularly scheduled program….

Jocelyn Rish

Jocelyn Rish is a writer and filmmaker who never imagined her cheeky sense of humor would lead to a book about animal butts. When she's not researching fanny facts, she tutors kids to help them discover the magic of reading. Jocelyn has won numerous awards for her short stories, screenplays, short films, and novels and lives in South Carolina with her booty-ful dogs.