Over the last two or three months, spam comments on my two sites gradually increased from less than 200 per day, which was bad enough, to 300, then 400, then 500, and so on, peaking at around 900 per day, at which point they outnumbered genuine comments by 500:1 or more and forced me to spend half an hour or more per day deleting the filthy things. Though I have been unable to install any software solution, some time last week the flood suddenly turned into a trickle. I’m now getting a very manageable 30-40 per day, and the last two comments on this site were both genuine. It’s been months since I’ve had the pleasure of approving two in a row.

I wonder what happened. Were all the spam comments coming from a single spammer ? If so, has he been kicked off his ISP? Arrested? (I hope so.) Assassinated by rival spammers? (Even better, and there have been some hints that many of the comments were coming from Russia.) Or have his ill-gotten profits allowed him to retire to the Riviera and give up spamming entirely? Most disquieting: is my relief purely temporary? Perhaps spammers all take their vacations this time of year, or go to a spammer convention in Acapulco. Time will tell, but so far I’m enjoying the extra free time.