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Stephen Blogs then Spammers Mob

I hold Stephen Downes as the uber edu-blogger- and givne his following, when he mentions one of our sites like he did today, the comments come flying in, the Trackback meter spikes... and as an un-intended sign of the ripples in the net, the spammers swarm in like a bunch of vultures in meth.

I do not blame Stephen or hold him responsible for sending spam my way (though trackbacks from OLDaily would be swell), and more marvel at the organic entity that the web truly is by demonstration just today.

Only hours after he tossed some high praise on our use of "small pieces" for our Ocotillo projects, there were already throttled attempts thwarted by MovableType 2.661. However, a few porn web sites managed to squeeze in through some cracks in the MTBlacklist plugin (off subject but related- a big blog congratulations to Jay Allen for winning the Six Apart plug-in award and I agree completely with its being numero uno).

It did not take much to flush them out of our blogs, but for my lamenting about the waning activity of bloggers I respect and desire more writings from, it is discouraging that the spammers are that energetic and active.

So you can have your technorati ratings, and be at the top of the subscribee list at Bloglines, but the uber bloggers know they are there when their posts are sufficient to set of a wave of spam.

Seriously, Stephen sets the blog standard by being consistent, reliable, and opinion bearing. Without his mentions way back in February 2003, I'd just be a little, ignored barking dog on the far edge of the blog galaxy ;-)