July 14, 2024

A bunch of comments wrongly shunted into the spam file in the last few days.

I just noticed and let them out. I need to check that more often. Sorry, especially to anyone who spent time wondering what they might have done wrong. The answer is nothing. It was the software finding fault inappropriately.

Thanks for all the great comments!

80 comments:

MOfarmer said...

thanks for having us!

mccullough said...

The Althouse Dead Letter Office

Big Mike said...

And here I thought you were censoring me. I was figuring you for a very thin skin. Glad to be wrong.

Dave Begley said...

The Althouse comment section is truly great.

Joe Smith said...

I'm assuming this is where half of my pertinent comments went.

Please tell us what it would cost to move off of Blogger. It seems to be '90s-era software.

I will be happy to contribute to the bill...

doctrev said...

It's all good. If mine end up in the bin, just junk them, please. Either they get posted or they do not.

Wince said...

Wince said...
Althouse got rid of Hector faster than Tony Montana?


7/13/24, 9:12 AM

Later, after the assassination attempt, I actually thought Althouse was kinda prescient cancelling my "Hector" comment.

https://althouse.blogspot.com/2024/07/the-biden-crew-is-hectoring-journalists.html?showComment=1720879597156#c8503422508619836886

7/13/24, 9:06 AM

imTay said...

I was thinking "I can't believe that she is up this late, reading every comment, and censoring comments that quickly!"

But I have seen blogger censor certain comments before, like any comment that referenced a "Mask Study" that was done in Denmark, for example, or a link to it.

Joe Smith said...

'But I have seen blogger censor certain comments before, like any comment that referenced a "Mask Study" that was done in Denmark, for example, or a link to it.'

Well, Blogger is Google, and Google is one of the most evil companies on earth, so...

Jamie said...

It's all good. If mine end up in the bin, just junk them, please. Either they get posted or they do not.

This is where I am, and also Dave B's comment - this comment section is integral to why I keep coming here and I'm grateful to our host for inspiring and facilitating it.

Dave Begley said...

Tonight from the Oval, Biden should pardon Trump. Call off Crazy Jack Smith. Marchan can cite SCOTUS and grant Trump a new trial. Briggs can not refile. That leaves the whore in Atlanta’s case. That should be dismissed by the judge.

But the big issue for me is whether the Dems terminate - with extreme prejudice - their election stealing schemes.

Wa St Blogger said...

Please tell us what it would cost to move off of Blogger. It seems to be '90s-era software.

I will be happy to contribute to the bill


I think it has more to do with the archive than the cost.

Joe Smith said...

'I think it has more to do with the archive than the cost.'

I get it, but with so many platforms, somebody must have solved this problem.

Original Mike said...

What's been happening to me, a lot lately, is that comments will initially appear, then disappear fairly quickly and stay disappeared for hours. If I return the next, they are back.

Is that a spam folder thing?

Achilles said...

Interesting.

Original Mike said...

If I return the next day, they are back.

Achilles said...

Still happening.

Sebastian said...

I just want to thank you for keeping the blog and the comments section going.

Fred Drinkwater said...

Althouse, I am getting fat from all the free ice cream served up here. For which I have been grateful for decades. Not forgetting Meade, of course...

stlcdr said...

Thanks for the effort put into this blog. And thanks to the commenters providing insight and amusement (bemusement?).

Chuck said...

This is my last post on your comments pages, Althouse.

You have email from me letting you know why. Indeed, you have three emails from me today pointing out certain vaguely threatening comments from your TrumpWing readership. You didn't have the decency to reply to any of them, although I do see that you nearly immediately removed one of the offending posts. Why you didn't remove any of the others is beyond me. Check your mail for specifics. I think you will know why you should have taken action, when you consider all the facts.

Today was the last straw for me, after years of abuse from your commentariat. The use of your blog's comments pages for the purpose of possible personal threats is the end for me. No one should expect you to police all comments the moment that they appear. But when you are notified of major problems that defy your own commenting rules, and you fail to respond, that is on you.

I offered up just one single comment today, on just one of your ten (10 - so far) blog posts of today. It was a rather anodyne comment, noting that Trump clearly did not compose the message that you were blogging about. You blogged, "We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient in our Faith and Defiant in the face of Wickedness..." Wrote Donald Trump, in Biblical prose, this morning, on Truth Social. My comment was little more than the observation, no doubt true, that there was a "zero-point-zero" chance that Trump, uh, "wrote" any of that. Later today, you noted that you actually (wow!) thought that Melania "wrote" the letter that you displayed and blogged. (I think you're right about that.) Yet throughout today, I saw my name called out for attacks and abuse dozens of times, including obviously those comments pages where I had not posted anything at all.

That's a sort of normal day for me on the Althouse Trump Blog. But what isn't normal is the doxxing/threatening shit. About which I specifically warned you.

I go away still convinced that you are, as I told you this morning, a clever and engaging writer. But that your blog curation and moderation of your comments pages in the Trump era has been shameful.

It's been a source of real pleasure for me to publicly praise the aspects of your blogging that seem excellent to me. It's a bit like running down my credentials as a loyal volunteer Republican election lawyer with TrumpWingers as I criticize Trump. And yet the notion that I get criticized for legitimate praise of you, even from (particularly from!) Meade, is laughable. It's uniquely laughable to me, because I know the background and I get it more than other readers ever could. You're a wonderful blogger, and I will still read. I imagine that many former commenters, driven out by the Trumpist mosh-pit of your current commentariat, still read your blogging as such.

Fortunately, blog-tags are forever, right? Even the Chuck (the commenter) tag.

And now I extend to you my sincerest 'buh bye.'

Big Mike said...

And now I extend to you my sincerest 'buh bye.'

It won’t last. He can’t help himself.

Althouse is a mother-figure to him, and when he picks fights, as he tries to do with nearly every comment he posts, and people rightly snap back at him, his instinct is to run crying to “mommy.” But Althouse has already raised two sons and sees no reason to take on a third.

That’s my take FWIW, and I could be wrong — though I doubt it.

Enlighten-NewJersey said...

Your comments here always seem to be about how special you are, "a loyal volunteer Republican election lawyer" as an example. Bye, Chuck.

Achilles said...

Chuck said...


And now I extend to you my sincerest 'buh bye.

Nobody believes you.

When you come back we will still treat you like the evil, dishonest, politically violent piece of crap that you are.

pacwest said...

This is my last post on your comments pages, Althouse.

Seeing is believing. We can only hope you are a man of his word. Please. Thanks.

Dave Begley said...

A historic (not historical) day in the life of the Althouse blog.

Chuck, I never read your comments.

Mason G said...

Well... bye.

RCOCEAN II said...

"This is my last post on your comments pages, Althouse."

LOL. Yeah, sure. We believe you Chuck. Farewell and have a nice life. Of course, you would never come back under another name or just come back in a week or a month or two.
Right? Because that would be incredibly cringe.

Lets start a betting pool: When will chuck return?

Joe Smith said...

See ya Chuck.

Have a nice day!

RCOCEAN II said...

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3. A time to be published, and a time to be spammed.

Thus sayeth the preacher.

RCOCEAN II said...

Final Comment. Chuck does the thing that a lot of bozos on the internet do. He's anonymous. He has no blog that people go to. Most people here dislike his comments or don't read them (like me). But...

He assumes an attitude of superiority and presumes to be the Judge. He's passing judgement on Althouse. Oh, she's met His standards - sometimes. But overall she's been shameful. And not good enough for Chuck. And he's warned her dammit. So, he's sadly going away. Althouse has let him down.

Cue shake of head and disappointed look.

I cant tell you how much a hate this dishonest passive-aggressive crap.

Crazy World said...

Later Chuck!!!! What a beautiful day.

Iman said...

Chuckles said… “This is my last post on your comments pages, Althouse.”

It’s gonna be a great day!

Dr Weevil said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dr Weevil said...

Didn't 'Tim in Vermont' say he was going away to have a life instead of wasting time arguing here? Soon after that 'imTay' (pig Latin for 'Tim') appeared, repeating the same stale talking points in his place.

If someone named 'uckChay' shows up tomorrow or the next day, don't say I didn't arnWay ouYay.

Iman said...

Meh… fuckChay

Captain BillieBob said...

Nobody likes a drama queen.

Tomcc said...

Oh, dear Lord: we'll never have another like Chuck(!). What a peculiar conceit.

RMc said...

This is my last post on your comments pages, Althouse.

If only.

The rule of Lemnity said...

There was no second lone blogger at the grassy backyard.

doctrev said...

Bye, Charles. Stay outta trouble.

After all, we now know President Trump is much braver than you are.

Iman said...

Meh… fuckChay

effinayright said...

Chuck leaving this blog in a fit of Nixonian self-pity seems just...perfect.

"Goodbye and good luck, Chuck"---said nobody to Chuck, ever.

Even when he goes to meet his Maker, I suspect his Heavenly reward will be to be hit in the ass with a thousand doorknobs each hour, for all Eternity.

Drago said...

LLR-democratical Chuck....

I leave you gentlemen now. And you will now write it. You will interpret it. That's your right. But as I leave you, just think how much you're going to be missing. You don't have this fake republican to kick around any more, because, gentlemen, this is my last blog posting.......and by the way, that is a lovely outfit you are wearing Althouse....and is that roast beef I smell cooking? Delightful! Althouse is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.....

....what's that? A what? Pecan pie? Pecan pie?! PECAN PIE?!!!!......

....and Trump is alive?!! Like Clint Eastwood in Firefox?!!!!

....(scuffling, glass breaking, doors slamming etc heard in the background)....

doctrev said...

Drago said...

....(scuffling, glass breaking, doors slamming etc heard in the background)....

7/14/24, 5:49 PM

Hah. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Lance said...

Please tell us what it would cost to move off of Blogger. It seems to be '90s-era software.

She's looked into that many times. IIRC Google told her that she has too much accumulated data, they can't (won't) provide her a dump of all the posts, comments and tags. She could leave the existing data at Blogger and start posting on a new platform, but she's said she doesn't want her blog to span multiple platforms.

(Idea: she could save a few bytes if she left out the Chuck and Drago comments.)

Drago said...

doctrev: "Bye, Charles. Stay outta trouble.

After all, we now know President Trump is much braver than you are."

That, and better golfer, and more attractive, and far smarter and more successful. With all that and the events of yesterday and today, I suspect that's the key driver pushing Chuck away, though just temporarily (don't fool yourself).

Although, as with romantic couples "always having Paris", Chuck will always have his in-home Maddow shrine.

Drago said...

Lance: "(Idea: she could save a few bytes if she left out the Chuck and Drago comments.)"

I won't argue the point.

Saint Croix said...

Is it a curse word thing?

Test.

Fuck!

Fuck cunt and suck some more!

Shitty fucking spam fuck!

Ann Althouse said...

The chance that Chuck will stay away from the comments, I put at zero point zero.

In any event, I’ve been very busy and haven’t read my email in a couple of days. So if anyone has written me email and is wondering why I haven’t responded to the wonderful arguments in their email ought to consider at least consider the possibility that I haven’t been reading my email. I have limited time, there’s a lot to blog about and a lot of comments to approve, which I try to do, and I even try to get to the spam file to release the things that were incorrectly shunted into spam. But I get so much junk email that I rarely sift through it looking for things that might actually be of real importance. I can’t believe the arrogance of a person who assumes I have read the email and is making grand judgments against me based on that presumption.

I did delete one comment I saw that offered the real name of a commenter that uses a pen name, but that was because I happened to see it and judge on my own that it didn’t belong on the blog. I happened to see it. I can’t guarantee that I will see things. I don’t have the time to read all the comments, especially these past few days, which have been tremendously busy, keeping up with the attempted assassination.

Dave Begley said...

LOL, Ann.

Chuck doesn’t know how to quit Althouse. FACT.

Original Mike said...

I'm sure if you apologize and ask really nicely, he'll come back…

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I don’t see mine.

Dave Begley said...

What a pathetic and anodyne address by Biden. Insincere.

1. He should have pardoned Trump.

2. He should have fired the Head of the Secret Service. In the Navy, a captain is fired if she grounds a ship. The Head of the Secret Service ran the ship right up on shore and crashed through the dock.

Jon Ericson said...

I imagine Reid's organization will adjust his contingency checks in proportion to his engagement statistics.

traditionalguy said...

I’ll miss Chuck. He was reliable in his Marxism. A rare trait.

Original Mike said...

"What a pathetic and anodyne address by Biden. Insincere."

I listened to the first several seconds and then had to turn it off. Just looking at Garland and Mayorkas standing there turned my stomach.

Rich said...

If a Democrat had been the target of an assassination attempt, can anyone plausibly imagine a Trump statement that did not denigrate and equivocate?

Drago said...

LLR-democratical Rich: "If a Democrat had been the target of an assassination attempt, can anyone plausibly imagine a Trump statement that did not denigrate and equivocate?"

Trump "guilty" in bizarre "change the subject" hypothetical vomited up by pathetic leftists.

Mason G said...

"Trump "guilty" in bizarre "change the subject" hypothetical vomited up by pathetic leftists."

You have to understand many of them are disappointed that yesterday didn't go the way they'd hoped for.

FullMoon said...

"there was a fungus among us"

He be scared, but be back within 3 weeks to dis Most Courageous Former President Ever.

Original Mike said...

"What a pathetic and anodyne address by Biden. Insincere."

I just watched it. It was terrible.

FullMoon said...

So, doctrev was correct about Chuck.

Speaking of anonymous commenters afraid to use real name, of which I am one, much admiration for those here and elsewhere who do have the guts to risk retaliation.

Years ago, one normal, real name, commenter here) got into a back and forth with a notorious, articulate, crazy, frequent commenter whe eventually began threatening to do this and that.

Normal real name guy published his address and his land line and cell phone numbers and basically said "put your money where your mouth is"

Ended that conversation pretty quick.

Jimmy said...

The left is having trouble processing recent events. They wanted it to happen, they spoke about it for almost a decade. They even wrote a play, Shakespearian cover, depicting Trump being stabbed to death.
Reading the comments on X, and on this blog, shows how devastated they really are that Trump wasn't killed yesterday.
All the 'this time, this time we got him' almost succeeded. They can't stop him, so they decided to kill him.
The set up was done-the secret service would kill the guy after Trump had his head exploded on TV.
But that failed, and Trump, unlike Biden or most men, didn't cower, didn't run. He stood up, and defied them, openly.
And that really pisses off the left.
FBI will investigate, and find nothing. The people responsible for protecting Trump failed, and did so on orders. Anyone who trusts our agencies now is a fool, or a leftist.
I find that whats his name left this blog-but we have his clones to vomit the same old song and dance. "This time this time this time"
All of you leftists should stand proud-your hate, lies, and propaganda almost killed Trump, so you could save democracy.

Prof. M. Drout said...

I have been reading your blog for close to 20 years and have been consistently amazed by both your seemingly infinite patience and the incredible obnoxiousness of a few commenters.
What particular mental illnesses or faulty upbringings leads a small number of people to behave this way is a mystery to me, but I appreciate the immense amount of work you do to maintain the openness of the comment section.
It seems to me that the best thing for me to do is to refuse to give those people the attention that they desperately desire and leave the responses to the one or two dedicated cockroach-stompers who make sure that the obnoxiousness doesn't go unchallenged without letting responses derail the discussion into whatever talking-point they're pushing that day.
Again, thank you for your incredible creation, one of the very best things on the internet for a long, long time.

Nice said...

3 different ideas:

1. Making a Comment.
2. Engaging with other Commenters.
3. The need to actually see your Comment in klieg lights, aka published.

If the purpose here is to engage with others, in a particular way, you might be disappointed ie Chuck.

If you simply wish to make a comment, and not looking for further conversation/reaction from anyone else, and not always checking to see if what you had to say was even published---seems more realistic.

I never expect anything from anyone, and certainly not on someone else's blog, online or social media.

Prof. M. Drout said...

The whole Greek-letter "socio-sexual hierarchy" is a bit overblown, but that long comment and the whole flouncing away is the absolute Platonic ideal of "Gamma."

It's like Chaucers "Tale of Sir Thopas" for medieval Romance: the only work that includes every single distinct feature of the genre--because it is a deliberate satire of the genre.

Only there's no satire in this flounce-away post. Remarkable!

Prof. M. Drout said...

Seriously, all that's missing is a "Milady" and slamming the trilby (NOT a fedora!) onto his head and turning on his heel!

Drago said...

Prof. M. Drout: "Only there's no satire in this flounce-away post. Remarkable!"

I almost wrote "Good Day Sir! I said "Good Day Sir!!""

Kate said...

I know that Substack can migrate content, although I don't know if they can handle the size of this blog. I bet they'd love to host Althouse.

imTay said...

I feel like a couple of comments that disappeared could reasonably have been inferred to be spam, but I also strongly feel that a "spam filter" is exactly the kind of application that the "Cyber Threat Intelligence League" (Thank you Matt Taibbi for exposing this) would target in order to censor political speech.

In other words, I think that the spam filter is probably doing viewpoint censorship. Using AI, this is easier than ever. Google owns Blogger, after all.

imTay said...

Thanks for the steer Prof Drout, I have a soft spot for those Medieval romances. Some of them are actually pretty good. I think that every aspiring writer should read Chaucer's "A Knight's Tale," BTW, just from the point of view of what the writer is doing to the reader, and how much fun it is for the reader to be manipulated so egregiously.

Jim at said...

I actually read a post by Chuck because of the responses.

It's never occurred to me to write a single e-mail to Althouse.

So, what kind of psycho writes multiples?
And then complains about the hostile environment he readily admits he helps create?

I wish you were my neighbor, dude.
For all the wrong reasons.

rehajm said...

You have the problem of moving. There are no self-actuated tools to make the heavy lift of moving something this size. Google could assist but… Then there is the loss of flow and fixing up the new house into not what it was but something else. Plus, old age and inertia. Not a dig but a real thing…

rehajm said...

I find it glorious when a provocation is ignored…

Ann Althouse said...

"You have the problem of moving. There are no self-actuated tools to make the heavy lift of moving something this size. Google could assist but… "

More than 10 years ago, high-level people at Google did try to assist me personally in getting their tool that lets users save a backup of their blog. In the end, they conceded that the blog was too big, so the tool timed out. The blog is now twice as big. My only backup is archive.org. I do not believe I could move the blog and after 20 years I'm not going to start over somewhere else. Doing something new would present new problems, and I don't want to pay any interest to technical things.

It is absolutely not about spending money, not even 1%. Even if I were offered free personal assistance from someone with high expertise, someone who would deserve a high salary, I wouldn't want it.

Ann Althouse said...

I've been doing what I am doing here for 20+ years and I'm setting what is for me a meaningful record of continuity. I'm 73 years old. You can't expect me to change. Appreciate the changelessness.

Ann Althouse said...

@Prof. M. Drout

LOL.


The flounce off is an old phenomenon here on this blog. It's not that common, but some people can't just melt back into the night.

Rusty said...

"It's never occurred to me to write a single e-mail to Althouse."
Unlike real life nothing on this blog is important enough to merit an e-mail to our hostess. Unless illness or death intervenes. Theirs, not mine.

Narr said...

I have probably sent four or five emails to the Prof in my eightish years here, and some of those were when there was a hiatus on posts. Others were legit (IMHO) inquiries about posts of mine that didn't show up in what I considered a reasonable time.

Prof's reviewing and approval process is not entirely clear and consistent. That's less a criticism than an observation, and when I craft something I consider worthwhile, I don't see anything wrong with inquiring when it doesn't show up after a while.

But same-day service and response seems like a lot to ask of a busy person.