It's April 1st …

UPDATE: Okay, I think they got the idea.

They pretty quickly retreated to voicemail, and then were beseiged by messages of yet more barking -- and even some panting.

Long story short -- they have promised to never, ever spam this site again. I'll believe it when I see it, of course. And yes, I have other things in mind if they start up again. Fun things.

Many thanks, folks. Apparently, your bark is worse than their bite. I am gonna pull the number now, but leave up the post.
__________


[ORIGINAL POST]

If you have a moment -- and a phone -- please continue reading for a way you can help me pull off a little April Fool's fun.

Okay, maybe it's equal parts fun and revenge. But still …

One of the unfortunate things about running a highly trafficked blog is dealing with comment spammers. You do not see them, as I spend time all day moderating their many, many comments out, and your comments in.

They are the reason you have to have an account to comment on this blog. They are also the reason you have to decipher those drunken-letters CAPTCHAs everywhere.

They are pretty scummy, in that they do not care how much time they waste for other people in the hopes of getting just one one-thousandth of one percent of you to actually click through. It's a numbers game, at our expense.


The Mark

I have had a devil of a time with one particular comment spamming company. They are one of those sleazy plagiarized term paper shops. I even contacted them, via phone, email and live tech support to try to get them to stop comment spamming me, to no avail.

Still, they constantly flood my comments with dull, unimaginative spam. This morning, for instance, I spent my morning reading and moderating out such relevant, pithy comments as:


"Many institutions limit access to their online information. Making this information available will be an asset to all.

[Link to spammy site] Term Paper Writing"


It is annoying, and a waste of my time in that I do not want the stuff to get through and degrade the comment section into garbage.

Seeing as today is, well, a special day, I wondered if some of you might help me have a little fun and waste a little time on their end for a change.

The instructions are simple: I would like anyone who would be interested in joining my efforts to call their direct support number and bark like a dog.

Say nothing. Just bark. Bark expressively -- carry on any conversation they may initiate by barking in various tones. But just … bark.

Or whimper, if you like. Have fun with it.

The number is in Delaware, in the U.S., but I am pretty sure it rings through to India. (My mistake. It was Russia.) If you want to join in, please preserve the secret. My plan is to call them tomorrow (I will remove this post after an appropriate amount of time) and ask them again to please stop spamming me.

Or else I will have to release the hounds again.

Feel free to report back in the comments with any reactions, be it funny or profane screaming. Suffice to say that I have kinda had it up to here with spammers, and I am ready to dish some back.

Thanks so much for any help.

The number is [since redacted, out of a small remaining sense of decency]. I just called to check it. It's them.

Thanks for your help on this special day.


-David.