I had no less than 20 comment spam waiting for me this morning. These were all since around 12:30 am. Looks like someone got a new spam generator in their Easter basket! Anyway, the spam blocking in WordPress caught them all, since they were all obviously spam. I’ve not come across too many of the really tricky ones as of yet. Anything that WordPress has missed in the past, I’ve been able to pick up on some keyword to add to the flag-list.
Oh, I suggest you not try and leave any comments that might include mention of any pharmaceuticals related to Men’s performance enhancement. They’ll be deleted before I can even do anything about it. Just being fair here. Not that I really wanted to talk about that with you anyway.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2005/03/pharmacists_rig.html#more
All things considered, I thought you and Angela might both enjoy this.
I read a lengthy article a couple of days ago in the Washington Post on the same issue, which I think some of those quotes may have come from. The real issue is that some of these pharmacists are not complying with APhA’s stance on the issue. To sum it up, a pharmacist is not to be expected to dispense a drug which they feel is unethical (which conservatives read as immoral). However, they must point the patient to a pharmacist who will fill their prescription.
No matter how wrong-headed I think these so-called professionals are being, I can understand that they should not be expected to do something they have such strong reservations against. I turned down a job once when the employer said most of their customers were chemical and tobacco companies and I would be designed structures for them and ensuring that they only need comply with the law with the minimum effort. However, the difference here is that these professionals are holding their position over the patient to prevent them from having the care that they and their doctor have agreed upon. That is simply an abuse of their professional position. The state never granted them that license with the intent they would push a personal agenda on their patients.
Although it is an inconvenience, especially to women patients, I urge everyone to ask their pharmacist directly if they are willing to fill a prescription before even handing it over to be filled (or on the phone before driving there). Find a pharmacist that is willing to respect your personal rights to the care you deserve. If possible, see my wife. She cares about her patients, and doesn’t judge them before filling their ‘scripts.
As soon as I can find a link to APhA’s official stance on the subject, I’ll write a lengthy post on this… or maybe Angela will. She has some pretty strong opinions on this one.
I’ve had similar problems with Drupal. They have Bayseian filtering to help with the problems. I was thinking of converting to WordPress. How well does the filter work?
Editor’s Note: We’re having a multi-topic thread here, but this is a bit more back to the original topic.
Joe: WordPress is really pretty good, right out of the box, on filtering out comment spam. The count was actually more like about 30 in the last 24-hours, but I did seem to get hit with a huge chunk overnight. I think only one got through. I’ve been “lucky” so far, in that the vast majority of the spam I get is from similar sources. This makes blocking the stuff a little easier.
WordPress has a similar filter feature, but I’ve found it to be pretty effective. Further, there exists a number of plug-ins which are easy to install and use and people report them doing wonders. I haven’t even bothered with them yet myself. Hope this helps. I think you’ll really enjoy WordPress. There really isn’t anything I’ve seen you can’t get out of it, especially if you know a bit about PHP.
I had 20+ more spam this morning, all about backgammon… WTF?