Spam Filters: My Experiences and Thoughts

This humorous article discusses the problem I've encountered with spam filters used by some blog sites and offers links to web sites that explain what spam filters are and how they work. The article also attempts to inform the reader how I feel about spam filters.

Nothing is better than staff evaluation of a blog or entry. The blog site staff could click on the link to the suspected spam and determine is the blog is really spam. Most blog sites use to take care of spam by a visual inspection of the content of the blog after it was flagged by a viewer. This rendered a fair, objective method of getting rid of spam.

If you have an article describing how to make a delicious meal or if you have an article reviewing a product, some blog sites may automatically block a link to that article based on your description of the article. For example, a link to my article titled "How I Resolved My Lactaid Intolerance Without Taking Lactaid Tablets" was automatically rejected by one blog site that uses a spam filtering software package. I suspect the spam filter software locked on the word lactaid. One article that explained the inspiration and meaning of two sketches drawn by my wife was blocked as spam by a web site.

The article contributor now has to contend with more than just if the article title lures readers into viewing the article. The contributor now must contend with the issue of not being able promote the article on certain web sites. In most cases, new software packages like word processors make our lives easier. The spam filters make our lives more difficult. These filters make it virtually impossible to promote many types of articles.

I've also had problems with some blogs I wrote. The blog site rejected the blog as spam even though there were no links in the blog and the blog did not promote any particular product. I read one blog (written by someone else) that was rejected as spam and saw no hint of spam in the article. As a matter of fact the article did not promote nor attempt to sell any product.

Web sites that implement spam filters should implement viewer oriented options. In other words, the viewer is given the tools to determine personal criteria for spam. Based on the viewers criteria, the viewer will not be able to view certain material. For example, a Tea Party member might set up the spam filter to block all material containing the names Obama, Ried and Pelosi.

There are some sites that contributors depend on heavily for promotion of articles. Twitter and Facebook are two such sites. Using Facebook and Twitter more than doubled my views. Fortunately Twitter and Facebook use sophisticated spam filter software packages to eliminate spam problems without consuming valuable staff time. So my two main sources of promotion for my articles are not blocked because the title contains a word like 'lactaid.'

I wouldn't be surprised if a link to this article is rejected at some blog sites because the article is considered spam by some spam filter.

Hopefully, the problem with the less sophisticated spam filters will resolve itself as the spam filters become more and more sophisticated. Currently spam filters are little more than an annoyance and a subtle form of censorship.

So I guess I'll have to rename the article "How I Resolved My Lactaid Intolerance Without Taking Lactaid Tablets" to read "How I Resolved My Intolerance Without Taking Tablets" and do likewise with the contents of the article.

Comedian Pat Paulsen of the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour once said: "Censorship is needed. Censorship protects us from pornography and all those other things we love to see. You can look for it, but if you find it you better not show it to anyone!"

I'd like to tell the reader how I feel about spam filters but the omissions of vulgar language prevents me from revealing my true feelings.

I looked for an article on how spam filters work. I found the following website that describes different types of spam filters:

http://www.wisegeek.com/how-do-spam-filters-work.htm

Here is a link to a very interesting article about email spam filters:

http://www.mailchimp.com/kb/article/how-spam-filters-think/

Here is a link to an excellent article about email spam filters:

http://www.spamhelp.org/articles/Spam-filter-article.pdf

Here is a link to an Google article about spam filters

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/08/blogger-adds-spam-filter-for-comments.html

Here is a link to information about the Facebook Spam Filter

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=492192160843

The definition of spam differs depending on the web site.