Message to the Krazy.com Spammer

Okay, so I understand that you have a lot of time on your hands, and that you choose to, apparently, spend a significant amount of that time trying desperately to post spam advertising gambling and prescription drug websites to the guest book on my Krazy Kat web site. Let’s review:

First, you started posting very large HTML spams to the guest book. Since the guest book is moderated, those came to me for approval by email. My guestbook is set up to email me the post, followed by a link I can click on to automatically publish it. I approve anything that’s remotely on topic, the exceptions falling into three categories:

• People posting obscenities or other childish, inane comments;
• Messages that seem to be of a commercial nature – krazy.com is only interested in advocating for the works of George Herriman and entities that directly support Herriman’s memory, such as Fantagraphics publishing, and
• People doing obvious test posts that have little or no content.

I’m certain that you didn’t intend for this, but the giant, heavily-coded spams that you initially posted had a nasty habit of hanging not only my web-based email client, but also the web server that hosts it (which is not the same server that the site is on). So, after verifying that you are crafty enough to come in from a variety of IP addresses, which rules out simply blocking you, I added a little code to make the maximum post size far smaller than your average post (which is still four times the size of anything that has ever been legitimately posted).

Here’s the thing: At this point, I had no idea that you were so personally committed to poisoning my guest book. I assumed that this was an automated effort going after numerous guest books on the web, and that my size block would simply automate the process of rejecting your spam; you might not even notice. Boy, was I wrong! You actually think the ten Herriman fans or so a day who read my guestbook are the prime demographic for your online gambling and Cialis marketing. Amazing! What do you base this on? Did you pay for this market research?

So you noted the size limit, and then spent, what, about 90 minutes figuring out how to edit your spam enough to fit my restriction? Then you posted two spams, which came to me for approval, and guess what? I didn’t approve them. What a shock to the system that must have been!

So, an hour later, I get a guest book submission with one word: sex. I don’t approve it. Was that you, using the full breadth of your imaginative powers, doing a test? A few hours later, a benign post: “I love Ignatz; I must be Krazy”. Well, that’s on topic! If that one was you testing, congratulations! You passed. I published it.

And today I get yet another gambling spam post, this one cut down to just a few lines. I can only imagine the anxiety you must have felt, waiting for me to review it, waiting to see if maybe… maybe… perhaps, this attempt to use my guestbook as a further voicepiece for offensive spam will work! And now I’m imagining the dejection, the despair, as it becomes increasingly clear that I have used my god-like editorial powers to censor you once again.

So, at this point, I don’t know how resourceful you are. I don’t know how obsessed you are. All I really know is that you don’t make good choices on how to enjoy life – that I’m sure of. If you want to continue, and you come up with some way of making this really annoying for me, then, yes, I’ll shut down the guestbook. You will have succeeded in single-handedly removing the ability for people who appreciate Krazy Kat and want to discuss the strip at the Krazy Kat website from doing so.

You do understand — this is not a business. I make zero money for running krazy.com. I am not going to let it become someone else’s commercial venture, and I’m really perplexed as to why you are pursuing this as vigorously as you are. There are a lot of web sites out there, that get far more traffic than my site. My recommendation, and request, is that you move on. And consider that there are ways of making a living that don’t involve being a blight on the Internet. I mean, what do you do now if you’re out on a date, or at a family gathering, and someone asks you what you do for a living? Do you say, “Well, you know all of those offensive ads for rip-off online gambling and penile erection drugs that you get in your inbox; that your children get in their inboxes? I’m the guy who sends them!”

Self-esteem issues, perhaps? Sheesh!