No More Comment Spam

Man, I never had this problem on Blogger. I can’t find my actual e-mail for all the blog comment approval requests flooding my inbox, and 90% of them are spam. Who has time to read through a hundred comments every day to find the eight or so that deserve a response or posting approval?

When I started the Personal & Spiritual Growth blog, and wanted to also maintain the Cielem’el Cancer Journal, I let some friends talk me into switching to WordPress for both blogs, and I’m not thrilled with the switch to WordPress. (Ironically, one of my other associates quit Facebook today for basically the same reason – spam.) But my gripe is with WordPress . . .

• Is it easier to use? No, though ease of use is technically about equal, if all you’re doing is making posts.
• Does it have cooler widgets? No, just thousands more, only eight or ten of which I actually find useful. Meanwhile, I have the eight widgets I like on Blogger and they’ve worked great for years.
• Is it easier to integrate to my website? Sure, now that my entire website has been wiped out (along with all my e-mail history) and my website revamped around what WordPress is capable of (which is NOT CMS! btw). And actually, there are a few things I can’t seem to get around that annoy the heck out of me because I think the issues caused by WordPress  make my site look unprofessional.
• Does it have greater flexibility? Ha! Tens of thousands of themes, and maybe 3% of them have anything other than the absolutely standard WordPress screen layout that bores my eyes to tears.

Altogether, the conversion has been painful and the rewards far from plentiful, besides this ridiculous comment spamming. Thank goodness I have comment moderation turned so my readers aren’t getting spammed with garbage and junk spammers are trying to sell which have nothing to do with inspiration, personal or spiritual growth, or breast cancer survival.

Sigh. I am enjoying branching out with the personal & spiritual growth blog while still keeping my breast cancer survivor readers up to date on my continued treatment and experiences trying to overcome residual chemo side effects with the cancer journal. I’ve also been dying to write about my New Year’s Eve (which was the best EVER!) and some interesting things I learned about myself that night. But early January is always nuts for work, and things are about to get even more hectic, because I’ve been working on a book! It’s with my editor now, so hopefully soon you will see a great big splash about it on my website. The publication could conceivably happen this month!

My apologies to everyone who has, with sincerity, sent me comments regarding my blog postings. I really appreciate your feedback, so please don’t take this as a personal slight. If and when I have time to go find and integrate some good comment spam filters, I’ll turn comments back on. But, as you can probably guess, that may not happen for a while.