This web site is under attack. In the past few hours, more than a dozen "comments" have been posted at the end of various newsletter articles. The comments sections are for people who have comments, question, or corrections concerning the article. In the past few hours, a number of "comments" weren't comments at all. They had nothing to do with the article to which they were attached. Instead, they were simply spam-like advertisements for pornographic web sites. Each "comment" contained a link to a porno site.
Such actions are easy to control. I deleted each one and now have invoked an option in the web site's software that does not allow any more comments to become visible to the public until after I approve each one.
When you post a comment here , assuming your comment is somehow related to the article in question, it will become visible to everyone within a few hours rather than immediately. If your comment is not related to the article or is otherwise inappropriate, the comment will simply disappear without ever being seen by anyone other than myself.
Obviously, this is an inconvenience to 99.9% of the people here, and I apologize for the need to delay posting of comments. However, I feel this is the lesser of two evils. Otherwise, this site could be flooded with spam and porno links until I have a chance to check in and delete the junk.
Once this "wave" of stupid spamming goes away, I will quietly change the site back to the way it was up to today. I will probably do so without any public announcement. If the spamming and porno problem ever comes back, I will simply "flip the switch" once again.
Spam is stupid for many reasons. One reason is that it is so easily deleted. Anyone posting spam here is simply wasting his or her time as the junk never becomes visible.
