The following phrase showed up at the top of a medical blog I happened upon today:

“No longer accepting blog comments because of spam flood, such an unfortunate commentary on supposed social media”

It’s such an odd statement and such an odd stance to take. Disengaging a blog from the readership because of spammers is silly, there are so many ways to trap spam on most blogging platforms. Blog plugins, htaccess tweaks, blacklists, timeouts etc. Simple and effective to the point that you need not be swamped.

Moreover, it’s a sad reflection on the author of that phrase that they somehow feel social media is to blame as if “spamming” in all its forms had somehow emerged from that arena rather than being with us ever since the first salesperson thought to sell via the electronic medium (and even before that if you count printed junkmail and door-to-door spammers selling feather dusters).

Spam is a fact of life, like drain-clogging leaves in the autumn. To cope with it one simple needs a decent leaf blower. There’s really no need to chop down the trees.