» Buried by spam (and other hullabaloo)

Buried by spam (and other hullabaloo)

Jan 4th, 2013 by Jennifer Lynn

Holy smokes. I logged into this site last night and immediately I was battered by ~~one hundred and eighteen~~ 129 spam comments—all from yesterday. (Oops, more came through this morning.)

Was there a change or update somewhere that I have been oblivious to, that is attracting all of these unsolicited messages? This is my first instance of being pelted so ferociously by spamm-y comments. Usually I will receive a handful, but never of this magnitude. Is anyone else experiencing an exponential increase of spam on their own site?

So last night I sipped on fizzy wine and noodled around in my comments folders, trying not to get swallowed up in the unrelenting density of spam.

Here is a quick update on my writing project currently underway (a collaborative personal finance e-Book I am working on with several other financial bloggers):

I began writing actual words on Wednesday and I am in the process of producing a rough tattered first draft. Also it has been difficult to reach my desired word count for each day so I’ve been toying with several different writing methods, one of which I dub the ‘mental vomit’ technique, and it has worked splendidly.

I tend to agonize and stutter over every word, which seriously disrupts and paralyzes the whole thought process, and therefore this mental vomit method has been absolutely brilliant with snuffing out that bitchy inner-critic and editor, in order to just get the damn words flowing.

Basically I set a timer (usually for ten minutes or so) and then force myself to write as quickly as possible to capture my stream of consciousness during that time frame. I am so easily distracted and it actually helps to turn off my computer screen and just pound out the words. Now I can splay thoughts across the page in a deliciously deranged fashion and later return to craft something tidier and more presentable from all of that mayhem.

This has been a great technique with slicing through that mental barrier of having to stare in terror at the blank page. Do you have your own writing techniques that help you push through your own barriers? I love hearing about this stuff!

Also: remember that short list of inexpensive indulgences to pamper myself with this winter? Santa must have been reading because I received a beautiful black soft-cover Moleskine writing journal for Christmas, y’all! Finally a place to capture those spur-of-the-moment thoughts and ideas.

Many of you related to my New Years resolution to stop being such a damn shut-in, and I have been making an effort to reach out to my social circle for catch-up coffee dates and other niceties. Seriously I need to get out of my head more.

And also: progress on my ‘read a book each month’ resolution. Things were so hectic with the baby last year that I severely neglected any type of substantial reading due to time constraints.

Currently a copy of Pound Foolish: Exposing the dark side of the personal finance industry by Helaine Olen is resting on top of my favorite canvas tote that depicts a loveable devil character carrying a tray of cookies, with the words: WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE—WE HAVE COOKIES scrawled across the front. (Looove this tote bag!) Anyway Pound Foolish appears as if it aims to shred apart personal finance gurus, such as David Bach, Jim Cramer, Suze Orman, et al. I am still on the first chapter but so far it is an interesting read. My goal is to have fifty pages of Pound Foolish read by Monday.

How are your resolutions developing? Reasonable progress here and so far not a bad start to 2013.

=^..^=

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Posted in Don't Know Where The Hell This Goes, Goals | 22 Comments

22 Responses to “Buried by spam (and other hullabaloo)”

on 04 Jan 2013 at 10:41 am1John S @ Frugal Rules

Sorry to hear of all your spam! I’ve gotten a few more than normal over the last week or so, but no where near your amount? What spam plugin are you using? I am not much for resolutions, but we do have some fairly good plans in place (I hope) in order to reach our goals.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 11:28 am2Jennifer Lynn

I use Akismet, John. I am baffled as to why I’m being targeted by so much dreaded spam so brutally and suddenly.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 11:31 am3Holly@ClubThrifty

That sucks about the spam. We get a ton sometimes but it is mostly filtered by our system. TGIF!!!
on 04 Jan 2013 at 12:10 pm4WorkSaveLive

Wow…that’s a ton of spam! Do you use the askismat plugin? If not, you should check it out!

I think we’re collaborating on the same e-book as well! I finally finished my first chapter and now I have to begin working on the 2nd one. I was supposed to have it all finished this week…whoops.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 12:33 pm5Pauline

Akismet is a great plugin to avoid spam. It sometimes makes mistakes but rarely. I have never had that much spam!
I love Moleskine too! I like to have mine handy if I have ideas when I am away from the computer, because like dreams in the morning, after 5 minutes I forget about it all.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 1:00 pm6Mo' Money Mo' Houses

Oh wow that’s a lot of spam. I use disqus and I’ve only ever encountered 3 spam comments that didn’t get filtered out for the entire year I’ve had my blog, but I don’t have a wordpress blog so not sure if that’s an option.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 1:13 pm7Debt Roundup

I hate spam. I don’t really receive any much due to my site being on the CloudFlare network. They do all of the bad IP address filtering for me. Some legitimate comments get pushed into spam by Akismet, but very few.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 2:34 pm8Edward Antrobus

Most days I get around 10-15 spam posts over the course of the day, but there are days when I wake up and find 20 or more having accumulated overnight!

Pound Foolish sounds like an interesting read. I’ll have to check it out.

*Shameless plug* When you are ready to publish your ebook, formatting ebooks is my side gig.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 4:02 pm9Canadian Budget Binder

I get spam every day but it’s filtered through wordpress. When I move my site I’ll be using Askimet to filter the spam. I’m working on my part of the e-book as well and like you it’s difficult to get the words out sometimes. Here’s hoping to get it done in the next couple weeks. Cheers Mr.CBB
on 04 Jan 2013 at 5:08 pm10Jon @ MoneySmartGuides

I’ve noticed a spike in spam as well lately. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not the only one having this issue.

Looking forward to hearing more about the ebook collaboration with other bloggers. Sounds really cool.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 6:37 pm11Daisy @ Add Vodka

Ugh, I hate spam. If you put one of this “check this box” things at the end of your post, it should help cut down by a lot.
on 04 Jan 2013 at 9:00 pm12Glen @ Monster Piggy Bank

I love the mental vomit technique!

I actually have a word document devoted to all the ramblings in my head. Sometimes they make it out as blog post, but mostly I just do it to get my thoughts on paper.
on 05 Jan 2013 at 6:02 am13Beginning of 2013 Favorite Blog Posts | Modest Money

[...] Buried by spam (and other hullabaloo) on Broke-Ass Mommy [...]
on 05 Jan 2013 at 7:56 am14James @ Free in Ten Years

I actually enjoy some of the spam. I always look in the folder because it seems that my filter lets through about 1 genuine comment per 50 spam comments. Some of them are hilarious and I love reading them out to my partner in a very serious news-reader voice.

I think I need a new hobby.
on 05 Jan 2013 at 9:37 am15KK @ Student Debt Survivor

I use Askimet and it seems to filter out most of my spam. I have another personal blog (non-pf) that has recently gotten a lot of spam. I’m not really sure why? Lately I’ve been blogging while listening (partially to TV). A couple of the bad reality shows have inspired posts that I’m working on.
on 05 Jan 2013 at 9:40 am16femmefrugality

Ooooh you’re rocking your goals! I’ve been trying to do the reading thing, too, as I got a couple of fantastic books for Christmas. It’s amazing how little time you have to do things like….read….socialize….when you have a baby.

Boo on spam! Hope the filter was catching a lot of it!
on 05 Jan 2013 at 6:17 pm17debtgirl

Congrats on actually going for the resolutions! I didn’t really get around to making any, I think I am under enough self inflicted, self control objectives for awhile!

I like the idea of setting a timer. I have to have everything cleaned up and organized before I sit down to write. I think I use it as an excuse not to because there is always one more thing “I gotta do”!
on 06 Jan 2013 at 4:58 am18Brick By Brick Investing | Marvin

KK’s got the right answer, use askimet it grabs 95% of the spam that comes through!
on 07 Jan 2013 at 12:30 pm19The Happy Homeowner

Gross about all the spam! Did you check to see what users have subscribed to your blog lately? I caught one who had peppered my archives with junk comments all in the matter of a few hours–luckily askimet helped me easily delete them all with just a few clicks
on 07 Jan 2013 at 5:53 pm20Quietcountrylife

Normally I hate spam but I admit to getting a perverse sort of pleasure in receiving those ones which are so badly written that someone seems to have just chosen about 10 words and thrown them together in a random manner. Do they use machines to do that? It can’t be done by a person, can it?
on 08 Jan 2013 at 6:17 pm21My Money Design

I got a TON of spam last week too. It ended up being that I was ranking high on Technorati! Yeah for me!
on 08 Jan 2013 at 9:25 pm22Digital Personal Finance

That’s a ton of spam. Akismet works really well most of the time, but you’ve heard that already!