missing link

"A blog is a place to express your views in a public arena, and having some unknown people fill the space with advertising is the online equivalent of finding that someone has pinned a card advertising "private massage" to your coat when you were not looking" Bill Thompson. How Spammers are targetting blogs

The penny dropped when I read this article about comment spam. (via anil dash)
Inside those 150 OK's and Interestings should have been a link to some organ enhancement deal. But as I have not yet enabled HTML in comments the links are stripped and the lines remain like so much throwaway graffiti confetti.

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Comments: missing link

For the best human organs in Geelong, pop into my store, Len the Greedy Butcher. Specials this week include monk's liver (imported), pig-grafted stomach and a full set of vegan entrails.
Posted by Jim at October 29, 2003 01:58 PM

As there's no link I assume this is just another gratuitous compliment, Len.
Though the monk's liver does sound moreish.

but when I said organ enhancement, naturally I meant pipes, flues and stops. Got any weekly specials going on mutation stops, tremolo or toe studs, Len?

In the meantime, I found this link from the archives:
http://franklarosa.com/vinyl/BigImg/organ.jpg
Posted by boynton at October 29, 2003 02:16 PM

I'll have a look in my (refrigerated) garage.
Posted by Jim at October 29, 2003 02:19 PM

Hang on... you just said you've disabled HTML in comments. How does that "organ freakout" link come to be there, then?
Posted by James Russell at October 29, 2003 04:08 PM

Separate thing in the comment config.

"Should visitors be able to include HTML in their comments? If not, all HTML entered will be stripped out?"

"Auto link URLS
If enabled, all web URLs will be transformed into links to that web URL. NOTE: if you have enabled Allow HTML in comments, this option is ignored"

Guess this paradox means that a link from a bot (a href)embedded (/a) inside "Nice blog" will be stripped, but should the spambot add a link separately to organ enhancement it will turn blue.
That's my understanding of it anyway...
Posted by boynton at October 29, 2003 04:23 PM

HI! Wanna buy some dogfood?
Posted by A.Pal at October 30, 2003 12:52 PM

not unless there's a healthy mix of flattery in the spam
Posted by old chum at October 30, 2003 01:19 PM