I get my first spam comment on this site.

One of the features of WordPress is the ability to collect comments on each and every post. The idea here is to foster a sort of community with feedback and additional comments to enhance the original post. I’m looking forward the comments I get on wickenburg-az.com and have already gotten quite a few. I don’t expect to get too many here because no matter how radical the ideas I express are, few people are brave enough to step forward and comment about them. There’s that and the fear that the e-mail address they’re required to enter may be used for spam.

It won’t. I have better things to do with my time than fill other people’s mailbox with junk mail. Heck, I have enough of a time keeping the junk out of mine.

Anyway, comments are commonly used by spammers to insert advertisements and links for something that has little or nothing to do with the post they’re spamming. That’s why I have WordPress set up to require that I review every comment before approving it.

This morning, there was a spam message in there from some kind of online casino. I knew it was spam without clicking the link and I immediately disposed of it. It’s quick and easy: two button clicks and it’s gone.

If spam becomes a problem, there’s a plugin I can install that will prevent it from being automatically entered. The software requires the commenter to enter a code that appears in a graphic onscreen before the comment can be entered. You’ve probably seen things like that on other Web sites; it’s getting more and more common these days. It’s an extra step for the commenter and I’d prefer not to institute it, but I will if I have to.

I think that if we all just ignored all spam and stopped clicking those links they include, spam might go away. But then again, I’m often quite naive about things like this, so I’m probably wrong.

Anyway, please don’t think that I’ll delete a comment that argues a post it’s commenting on. I won’t — unless it’s abusive or libelous. I believe in free speech and this blog is my outlet for exercising mine. You can use it to exercise yours, too. Just don’t get nasty about it, okay?