What's This All A-BOT?

I guess it's just another sign of the unpleasant world we now live in - and, to be sure, it doesn't rate being in the same galaxy as the horrible, stomach-turning things that are going on with war, politics, race, crime, mass-shootings and whatever is dominating today's news cycle...

...But, I gotta vent it because, for a short while, it was turning me off to Blogging - and this humble Blog has been one of my constant joys since it began in 2008.  

As my regulars know, my Blog had been invaded by a BOT and, as Mickey Mouse (good as he is) can't help ME "Outwit THIS Phantom BOT"...

...Where a previous incursion resulted in the loss many of your valued comments (revisit the event HERE), I'll have to take matters into my own non-four fingered gloved hands!  

It seems that this persistent BOT exists to generate SPAM.  NINE spam, or decidedly spam-like, comments between October 30 and November 03, 2023.  

But not the usual type of spam that most bloggers get, for penis enlargement or solar panels (...presumably to keep your newly-enlarged penis warm and cozy).  Those are easily and routinely thwarted by the use of "Comment Moderation".  

While I have no true-fact basis to back this theory, I feel these unwanted comments are the result of some prankster (nay, VANDAL - perhaps even would-be cyber-terrorist) experimenting with some form of AI!  

Why?  Because the comments are actually "tailored" to the subject matter of whatever randomly-targeted-old-post it zeroes-in on.  BUT, those comments are awkwardly phrased as if they were not naturally composed by a human being!  

Yes, I've considered the possibility that the author might be someone for whom English is not a first language... or even a seventh, or seventeenth, but such persons (to their extreme credit, BTW) always manage to address specific points or aspects of the post they're commenting on and, if the Blogger engages any and all legitimate visitors to his or her Blog as *I* do, sometimes a dialogue might even develop.  

In the case of this BOT, the comments are generic, sometimes TOO GENERIC, but often with a hint of something that may relate to the subject matter of the post.  

But, it's always a regurgitation of something I've ALREADY SAID in the post, or a retrieval of other data easily found online, and spat back more structured and formally (yet, still very awkward) than a human being would normally compose!  

FOR EXAMPLE: 

In my DVD Review of the Herman and Katnip DVD set, I said: 

"SUMMARY: It's like TOM AND JERRY, but they TALK! Traverse the 1950s with Herman and Katnip, Paramount/Famous Studios answer to MGM's classic Cat vs. Mouse team Tom and Jerry." 

The BOT says: "Herman & Katnip the classic cat and mouse duo resemblance [sic] to Tom & Jerry cartoons."

HEY, BOTTY-BOY, I just said that... got anything original in your AI arsenal?  

In response to my DVD Review of the Sylvester and Hippity Hopper DVD set, the BOT offered: "Classic animated series debuted in 1930 93 years ago became the longest running cartoons of all time became the compilation film and TV series by Warner Bros." 

Um, sounds like some awkward AI processing of wiki-something-or-other to me!  ...AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FREAKIN' POST!  

Then, there are the absurdly generic ones such as:

"I am the fan of classic animated cartoons and comicbooks in popular media throughout the world."

Um, THE fan?  Surely, there must be four or five more than that!  

And, on the same day, but to a completely different post: 

"I am r fan of classic animated cartoons and comicbooks in popular media throughout the world." followed by eighteen different emojis of "expressive round yellow faces", stars, birds, the Masks of Comedy and Tragedy, a movie director's clapboard, a movie camera, a movie projector, a mainframe computer, a laptop computer, and a TV set with antenna rabbit-ears !  

...AND, YES, I SAID EIGHTEEN DIFFERENT EMOJIS!!! 

By now I hope I've convinced you that this is NOT the product of a human being!  ...And why I walked-away from this series of strange happenings for a short period to regroup!  But now it's time to do something and directly address this cyber-pest who seems so obsessed with my Blog!

TO WHOMEVER IS DOING THIS!

PLEASE STOP!

Your comments will NEVER be published, and will never be addressed again after this post and any comments thereto!  

Thanks to Comment Moderation, they've been dead-ended and moved to SPAM!  I've only kept them in spam long enough to transcribe here and show my readers the sheer absurdity you've been directing toward toward this Blog - for reasons known only to you!   

Now, and for all time to come - if need be, they will be marked as SPAM and immediately deleted!  Neither your unwanted nonsense - nor any self-serving or malevolent links embedded therein - will ever be seen or accessed here!  

You've had your fun, now MOVE ON to someone else's Blog that you can perpetually pepper with your pre-adolescent pearls-of-wisdom!  A Blog without Comment Moderation where your dross can gleefully hide undetected amongst years-old-comments and where you can snicker at your own cleverness from afar!

There's nothing CLEVER about what you've done here... and, most importantly, there is no longer any reason for you to continue doing it!  

Leave this Blog for what it was always intended to be, a friendly and respectful place where persons of common interests can come together free of the snark and vitriol found throughout so much of the Internet!  

I'll be in this for the long haul, so please find a better (but I won't presume "more constructive") use of your time!