Word of Caution About Blog Comments

Some of you may already know this, but I just recently figured out something about comments.

I love reading all the comments other tatters leave on my blog but I don't publish them without looking at them first, and this is why. I've been involved in the tatting community for almost two years and am pretty familiar with many names and bloggers but I don't know everyone. While I'm not afraid of a few negative comments here and there, I am very cautious about spamming and other malware that is prevalent everywhere now.

As I was looking as some of the comments I've received, one trend I noticed was after that after a very innocent comment there were a bunch of underlined dots. I didn't immediately recognize the name and wondered why there were 10-15 dots at the end of the comment.

Now, I admit, I often end my sentences in email or when texting with 3-4 dots...it's kind of my way of letting the recipent know that my comments are open-ended and hopefully they will reply with further thoughts or information.

What was interesting about these comments was when I hovered my mouse over the dots and looked at the bottom of my browser screen, all kinds of trashy website URLs came up!

Spammers have figured out a way to create links using this method.

So, fellow tatters, be wary of unknown bloggers or odd comments you see on your own blogs and check them out (hover don't click) before publishing.

Just my two cents' worth but I hope it helps someone.

One more thing - if you receive comments in a foreign language, copy them into a translator (Google has one) before you do anything else. You'll be surprised and probably disappointed in what some of them say...