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The Perfect Spam Recipe

By on • ( 83 Comments )

Yesterday, Carolyn, at Nuggets of Gold, usurped the title of King Spam from Colin, and became our newest Queen of Spam. Remember the Silly Spam Game we played back in May, where the challenge was to submit a silly comment that my spam filter would catch? Colin, from A Dog’s Life? (Stories of Me and Him) won that challenge, with one comment that he masterfully crafted with a good spam recipe.

Meanwhile, none of Carolyn’s recipes worked, so she lost the contest.

But yesterday, a record four of Carolyn’s comments got snagged by my spam filter, and I had to stick my hand through all the yuck and muck and dig them out.

But I think I now know why some comments from pre-approved commentators on my blog end up on the spam heap. In other words, I think I’ve figured out the perfect recipe for making spam.

Occasionally after reading a comment, I get in an all-fired hurry and try replying to it without putting my cursor in the Reply box and clicking the mouse. Of course it doesn’t work, and WordPress just sits there and ignores me until I put my brain in gear and figure out what I did wrong. That is, unless the first letter I attempt to type is a capital S. Then the comment is instantly vacuum-sucked into the spam filter, with no warning or message telling me what is about to happen or what just did happen.

Compliments of WP, we have a shortcut key-combo of Shift+S, designed to instantly open up the trap door beneath an obnoxious commentator, and drop them into the Spam Dungeon. But if you are unaware of this shortcut key-combo, you may inadvertently send a good commentator into the Spam Dungeon. And that is not how to make blogging buddies.

Not only that, but once you drop someone down there, they remain there. Apparently, that’s what happened with Carolyn. A few days ago, I inadvertently opened the trapdoor with Shift+S, and down she dropped into the oubliette. I said to myself, “What the hell? Now, where did Carolyn go?”

I finally found her, wan and wasting, in the deep dark depths of Spam Prison. Of course I freed her, because she gives me lots of Golden Delicious apples.

But somehow, WP didn’t get the notice of her parole, and it kept sending her comments down to Spam Hell, even without Shift+S. That’s very nice of you, WP, to try to read my mind like that.

After manually approving four of her condemned spams, er, comments, WP seems to have finally figured out that she’s a good commentator (relatively speaking). And now WP has stopped doing me the unsolicited favor of filtering out her comments.

Carolyn is Queen Spam!

But not before she snatched the royal spam title away from Colin. So congratulations, Carolyn. Today I crown you Queen Spam!

Ta-ta-da-dahhh!

By the way, Carolyn, I promise to be good from now on, lest you use Shift+S too, and drop me down into those dark depths from which few return.

Categories: Blog

83 replies »

  3. Oh gosh! Words fail me at this “honor”!
    Being a step ahead of Colin is always a good thing but….
    Glad that I helped you find the problem so you could perhaps help save some other unfortunate people from the spam dungeon!
    I believe I need another vacation now after being down there!

    Liked by 1 person

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  5. I think Carolyn deserves a special can of spam sent to her by yourself. It must have been so dark and lonely in there. And when in prison, bread and water is not enough food. Not that I’d know personally or anything..

    Liked by 1 person

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  6. You are not going to like driverless cars, mechanical butlers or when skynet takes over universe to “serve man.” It’s going to be one automated cluster after another.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • I have a Subaru, with Adaptive Cruise Control. That makes it semi-autonomous. I actually like it, but it can get confusing sometimes. I ‘m careful, because I worry it might not stop in time for the car in front of me. But I’m wary about too much automation. And (I say this now), I’ll never get one of those damned Siris or Alexas.

      Liked by 1 person

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