Comments here on gayauthors.org are fine. Let me say that right away. This web site is a moderated, safe, fenced-in area of the internet. If you blog out in the wild, wild west, that is to say today's Internet, on your own little blogspot or wordpress or what-have-you, unfenced-in and left to your own devices when it comes to security and access, then be skeptical, please. Be skeptical of comments that are left on your blog and of messages emailed to you. Please.

Ask yourself first, is the message what it appears to be? Some comments are left by human beings, others by automated bots, which is to say computer programs that access a database of canned messages that may have, at one time, been written by a human being, with an eye to appearing genuine and able to satisfy the scrutiny of most readers, and deposited on a vast number of blogs, including your own. Why would a bot do such a thing? Because it is trying to promote a meme or a web site.

I visited a gay author's blog tonight in which a bot had deposited a message that appeared to be a question asking for a recommendation on blogging software. The comment was left because it promoted a web site having something to do with e-cigarettes, a fashionable and profitable product. The writer wrote about five paragraphs in reply, not realizing that the commenter was not human. I will not identify the author. I tried to warn him, but his blog requires logging in with a Wordpress username. Look at the links, please. If nothing else, scan the links. The links give bots away faster than anything. But sometimes, a bot merely wants to promote an idea. If the comment is generic, then it is likely a lie. Delete it.

Bots and their authors can have more motives than I have discussed, but the above is enough.