Today we received a comment that wasn't blatantly obscene. We rejected the comment and deleted it. Before banishing the comment to oblivion, we did a screen capture so you can see the comment. At first glance, it looks rather innocuous. Let's dissect the comment.
The first two words, "Nice dispatch" raised the yellow flag for me. Nobody I know calls a blog post a "dispatch." I may have called a blog post a dispatch but I sure can't remember when I did. It's just not common usage. And....Soooo....my blog post supposedly helped someone in their college assignment, eh? OK, which blog post was it? It was the one entitled "Home Again" written after we had returned from the Salmon River. Now, you tell me, what in the world could be in that blog post that would be relevant to anyone's "college assignment" anywhere on Planet Earth--or even beyond on planets elsewhere? College assignment? Yeah, right.
OK, now let's go to the last sentence: "Gratefulness you on your information." Clearly, this comment was written by someone in a foreign country. Either they were using their own novice understanding of English or they were using an online translator program.
OK, what to do with this comment? Some of you might be thinking, "What harm could come from approving this comment?" My spin is slightly different as I assume the worst about unknown online sources. To give the commenter positive feedback by posting their comment could simply be making this blog a target for someone someplace in some far distant land. Who knows what their motives may be? I say, "Nip this suspicious activity in the bud!"
With that in mind, we are making a major change to El Blog tonight--we are delisting it from the world's search engines to bring it back well under the radar level. This blog is now going to fly "on the deck" and hug the ground so it can't be seen by by anyone other than our LBRs. That means you will have to use your existing web address to find this blog. You all know how to contact us via email if you somehow lose the address. You are free and welcome to pass along the blog's address to your friends, family and associates. We're simply eliminating this blog from the world's view. Poof, gone. Now you see it, now you don't.
For many months, I didn't want to put a "site meter" on the blog. However, I had a change of heart a few weeks back and installed a monitoring and tracking device. I really wanted to see where the spammers were coming from. They are mostly in Eastern Europe and Africa. Just their very presence makes me nervous and kind of "creeps me out." Hence the big change this evening. We want this to be a positive experience for all of us, including me, the author.
We appreciate your understanding and patience with this change. Thank you for your Loyal Blog Readership! And than YOU for YOUR comments! Google just yesterday actually changed the whole "comment" thingie on its internal control panel. Now I can see all the comments that have ever been made since the blog started 01JAN10. Believe it or not, we've received 153 legitimate comments since that time!
Amazing but true. THANK YOU for taking time to comment.
Friday morning, the weekly statistical package for this blog was delivered to my inbox. I installed the Site Meter on June 19 so you can see the traffic that has accumulated since then. Pretty impressive! Total length of time spent on the blog per visit took a huge jump last week, from 1:42 to 3:26. That's about the highest it's ever been. Wonder why?
The Daily News
-- Site Summary ---
Visits
Total .......................... 902
Average per Day ................. 20
Average Visit Length .......... 3:26
This Week ...................... 143
Page Views
Total ........................ 1,663
Average per Day ................. 41
Average per Visit .............. 2.0
This Week ...................... 284 Have a great day & Cheers! jp
1 comment:
The time jump was obviously due to the LBR's fascination with cornbread.
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