This is an experiment in Machine Learning, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, whatever.

But I need proper digression first.

Last autumn, I turned my back on social media and went offline for a few days.

There, in that magical place, the real world was offline as well. A history of physics museum had to be opened, just for us.

The sign says: Please call XY and we open immediately.

Scientific instruments of the past have a strange appeal, steampunk-y, artisanal, timeless. But I could not have enjoyed it, hadn’t I locked down the gates of my social media fortresses before.

Last year’ improved’ bots and spammers seem to have invaded WordPress. Did their vigilant spam filters feel a disturbance of the force? My blog had been open for anonymous comments since more than 5 years, but I finally had to restrict access. Since last year every commentator needs to have one manually approved comment.

But how to get attention if I block the comments? Spam your links by Liking other blogs. Anticipate that clickers will be very dedicated: Clicking on your icon only takes the viewer to your gravatar profile. The gravatar shows a link to the actual spammy website.

And how to pick suitable – likeable – target blog posts? Use your sophisticated artificial intelligence: If you want to sell SSL certificates (!) pick articles that contain key words like SSL or domain – like this one. BTW, I take the ads for acne treatment personally. Please stick to marketing SSL certificates. Especially in the era of free certificates provided by Let’s Encrypt.

Please use a different image for your different gravatars. You have done rather well when spam-liking the post on my domains and HTTPS, but what was on your mind when you found my post on hijacking orphaned domains for malvertizing?

Did statements like this attract the army of bots?

… some of the pages contain links to other websites that advertize products in a spammy way.

So what do I need to do to make you all like this post? Should I tell you that have a bunch of internet domains? That I migrated my non-blogs to HTTPS last year? That WordPress migrated blogs to HTTPS some time ago? That they use Let’s Encrypt certificates now, just as the hosting provider of my other websites does?

[Perhaps I should quote ‘SSL’ and ‘TLS’, too.]

Or should I tell you that I once made a fool of myself for publishing my conspiracy theories – about how Google ditched my blog from their index? While I actually had missed that you need to add the HTTPS version as a separate item in Google Webmaster Tools?

So I desperately need help with Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing. Google shows me ads for their free online marketing courses on Facebook all the time now.

Or I need help with HTTPS (TLS/SSL) – embarrassing, as for many years I did nothing else than implementing Public Key Infrastructures and troubleshooting certificates? I am still debugging of all kinds weird certificate chaining and browser issues. The internet is always a little bit broken, says Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

[Is X.509 certificate a good search term? No, too nerdy, I guess.]

Or maybe you are more interested in my pioneering Search Term Poetry and Spam Poetry.  I need new raw material.

Like this! Like this! Like this!

Maybe I am going to even approve a comment and talk to you. It would not be the first time I fail the Turing test on this blog.

Don’t let me down, bots! I count on you!

Update 2018-02-13: So far, this post was a success. The elkemental blog has not seen this many likes in years.… and right now I noticed that the omnipresent suit bot also started to market solar energy and to like my related posts!

Update 2018-02-18: They have not given up yet – we welcome another batch of bots!

Update 2018-04-01: They become more subtle – now they spam-like comments – albeit (sadly) not the comments on this article. Too bad I don’t display the comment likes – only I see them in the admin console ;-)