You Don't Have To Visit This Blog

ON MYSTERIES ANSWERED, SPAM, AND GREG:

A NOTE TO ANYONE STILL READING THE BLOG. If you see spam (repetitious phrases that are cut and pasted several times) in any of the comment sections, ignore them. I will delete them the next time I come in. I've already deleted the last round of comments.

You know, the last time I came in (when I posted the 4th of July 'Marches-A-Go-Go' compilation), I noticed another round of spamming in addition to comments left by a 'fake' Greg and the 'real' Greg in the top 6 or 7 posts of the blog. This also happened the time before that when I posted all the new posts that included the Alternate Stage Music & TV Chars. Vol. 2 entries.

And it got me to thinking about the goals of all of this. The spam in particular has always been a mystery to me. When the spam first started, it was confined to the Request Post and it only seemed to be in response to all the fighting that was going on in there between Greg and other people. As I mentioned in my essay, I thought this was the spammer's way of commenting on all the turmoil and trying to get people to stop or at least to annoy them. But there have always been several things I could never figure out about the spammer including these particular mysteries:

1) If the spammer's goal was to satirize or lampoon the people arguing, why didn't he ever say anything? Why was it that all of his spam consisted of quotes of the people arguing, but never any threats to keep doing it if people didn't stop or frustration over why it was happening, etc.?

2) Why wasn't the spammer like other people in there who were either mad at Greg or at the people fighting with Greg? Why weren't any of his quotes things like, 'Greg is stupid' or 'I hate Filmpac', etc.?

3) Why did he seem to appear out of nowhere? I had never had this kind of spamming on the blog before.

4) Why did the spammer come back a week or two later after he had done it the first time? The first time he did it, I thought he was frustrated with the fighting and wanted to get people to stop. Sort of like a guy who sees two people fighting and starts screaming at the top of his lungs right next to them to annoy them and get them to quit, I thought. Then there was no more spamming for a week or two and then suddenly it reappeared.

5) When the spammer came back, why did he start doing it over a 2 or 3 day period? The first two times he did it, it was on the weekend, I think, so I thought he was just some random regular reader who was only popping in on a Saturday or Sunday. I thought maybe that was the only time he had an opportunity to read the Request Post. But then he came back and started doing it on a Sunday, Monday, etc.

6) Why was there suddenly long, weird comments in foreign languages? Eventually when the fighting got really bad in there, someone started posting long passages of stories or text in Arabic and other languages that I don't quite remember. Possibly Dutch or French, etc. 4 or 5 of them. But it wasn't offensive as far as I could tell, but just someone or multiple people dumping in 4 or 5 really long passages of text in addition to the spam.

7) Why did the spam suddenly spill out into the main part of the blog? Eventually it left the Request Post and started showing up slowly in a few of the main posts.

8) Why did the spam eventually change to not just quotes from the fights, but things like 'Piss poor moderator' (which I realized later was a quote from Greg in the Request Post) or nonsensical rantings or lewd profanity-laden sentences? It seemed as if there were now 2 or 3 different spammers and now they were starting to say idiotic things not connected to the fighting and they were now using quotes that were attacking me as well as other things.

9) Why was the spam continuing and even getting worse after the fighting seemed to stop and then even after I eventually (and temporarily) shut the Request Post down?

10) Why was the spammer now posting things in the top 6 or 7 posts in things like the Mystery compilation or 'The Railway Children'? He couldn't really have any expectation that very many people would ever read them in the older posts. And certainly spamming things like 'No Music Is Being Posted Here' in a music post never made any sense either.

11) And especially these last couple of times, why was the spam getting worse even though there was fighting at all, the Request Post was closed, and I had just posted a bunch of new music? And this last time, the spam was now saying things like 'Bad blogger', etc. attacking me and the blog. This especially didn't make any sense.

........and there were mysteries about Greg's comments that I could never figure out as well. The last 4 or 5 times I've come in over the last few months, Greg keeps leaving comments about me moderating the blog or failing that, shutting down the Request Post. This last time I came in after I posted my essay on the subject, he left a comment now saying that I should either moderate comments or shut the blog down. He onstensibly was complaining about how what I will call a 'fake' Greg (using a different blogger profile) has been posting comments with links to the pages of 'real' Greg's blog, Soundtrack Rarities. Now Greg's motives, goals and thought processes have always been somewhat of a mystery to me, but here are a few of the nagging ones:

1) Why, after it was clear that I was not going to turn on comment moderation or turn off anonymous comments, did Greg keep beating this dead horse?

2) Why did his latest comment seem even more frustrated than he had been in the past when I already fully explained myself in the essay?

3) Why did he expect me to shut my own blog down? There wasn't anyone saying anything bad about him anymore. The Request Post was temporarily shut down. No more fighting going on. Did he seriously think I was going to shut down my blog because someone is posting links to the pages of his blog?

4) Why did he keep coming back here when things were already pretty quiet?

5) Why was he constantly so outraged about this 'fake' Greg? 'Fake' Greg wasn't saying anything bad about him. He wasn't pretending to be him and saying a bunch of obnoxious things. He was simply posting links to the pages of Greg's blog. He wasn't even posting the actual links to the files, but to the blog pages. Why should this bother Greg to the extent that he wanted me to shut the blog down?

I STARTED THINKING ABOUT SOME OF THESE MYSTERIES WHILE I WAS READING THIS LAST ROUND OF COMMENTS AND SPAM. I could never figure out the goals of the spammer and I kept thinking about Greg's goals. Then it dawned on me (and I know a lot of you will be way ahead of me on this), but then I realized that their goals were identical!

Now, for obvious reasons, when the spamming first started, I suspected Greg of doing it, but I dismissed it because I didn't feel that was Greg's style. When he wants to attack or annoy people, he just insults them directly. He didn't seem to be the type of person to hide behind anonymous nicknames, etc. He didn't seem to care if people were annoyed with him anyway so why would he bother to hide, let alone spam? So I assumed it was a regular reader who decided to attack the people fighting. This really bothered me to think it was a regular reader since he was essentially just attacking the blog and what regular reader has ever hated the blog enough to attack it like that?

BUT IF YOU CONSIDER THAT IT WAS GREG DOING THE SPAMMING from the very beginning and that his goal was to attack me and the blog so that I would have to turn off anonymous comments or turn on comment moderation, then every single mystery and question mark that I could never understand about all of these situations is perfectly answered!

He was trying to make it look like multiple spammers totally unrelated to him were doing this. He also wanted to annoy other people here, but not look bad doing it.

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MYSTERIES ANSWERED:

1) If the spammer's goal was to satirize or lampoon the people arguing, why didn't he ever say anything? Because Greg knew if he said anything people would be able to tell that it was him doing it. Also, that's Greg's style. He often leaves links advertising his blog or other blogs and says very little or nothing at all. Just like the spam. And since his goal was not only to annoy other people, but to create such a chaotic atmosphere that I would be forced to turn off anonymous comments or turn on comment moderation, he didn't care about saying anything like 'stop the fighting and I'll stop.'

2) Why wasn't the spammer like other people in there who were either mad at Greg or at the people fighting with Greg? Well, obviously he wasn't going to post quotes that made him look bad and he knew if he directly insulted people he was fighting with but not himself with these spamming quotes that people would automatically know it was him.

3) Why did he seem to appear out of nowhere? Well, he didn't. He was here all the time. It always bothered me to think that all of this fighting was prompting a disgruntled regular reader to attack my blog by spamming it and then later a bunch of weirdos to descend on it with weird and nonsensical spam. But when you consider that it was just one weirdo who was here the whole time, it makes a lot more sense. I knew that people who came here didn't suddenly become idiotic. It just didn't seem characteristic of people who visited this blog. But who was the one visitor who's been as persistent, obsessive and irrational as the spammer?

4) Why did the spammer come back a week or two later after he had done it the first time? Because Greg thought it would work the first time, but when I didn't bow to his wishes, he decided to keep doing it.

5) When the spammer came back, why did he start doing it over a 2 or 3 day period? Because he thought doing it on the weekends when I usually came in would attract my attention. He didn't realize that I was gone during that whole period. So then he started doing it more often and on different days. I could never figure out why the spammer just happened to follow these arguments at the right times and was following them closely enough to pick out specific quotes. But I'm glad to know it was confined to just one nut and not anybody else.

6) Why were there suddenly long, weird comments in foreign languages? When the initial spamming didn't work, Greg thought he would up the ante and do something that was really noticeable but not too offensive. He wanted to keep out anonymous people but he didn't want to disrupt the atmosphere so much that he killed the Request Post. He still wanted to be able to advertise his blog. It must've really drove Greg crazy when I deleted all of it, but wouldn't turn off anonymous comments!

7) Why did the spam suddenly spill out into the main part of the blog? When the obnoxious spam didn't work in the Request Post, he decided to really get my attention and he started attacking the main part of the blog. He thought he would convince me that there was a bigger problem here that wasn't just confined to the Request Post.

8) Why did the spam eventually change to not just quotes from the fights, but things like 'Piss poor moderator' (which I realized later was a quote from Greg in the Request Post) or nonsensical rantings or lewd profanity-laden sentences? After everything else failed to work, he started getting upset with me and shifted from random quotes to other things hoping that it would convince me of the seriousness of the problem of these random anonymous people showing up here. He also wanted to make me think that it was more than one person so some of them were quotes and others were nonsensical rantings. Nobody has ever left weird sexual comments or ones attacking me before, so I always thought it was completely odd how it just spontaneously started. The irony is that Greg thought this would convince me that anonymous people were bad but all it did was make me more disgusted with how Greg had ruined the atmosphere here to the point that these weirdos had suddenly showed up.

9) Why was the spam continuing and even getting worse after the fighting seemed to stop and then eventually I temporarily shut the Request Post down? Because it was never about people's disappointment over the lack of music being posted or even all the fighting. The goal was to attack the blog regardless of what was going on. That was one of Greg's mistakes. Eventually the irrationality of it was too much of a Greg trademark to think it was anybody else.

10) Why was the spammer now posting things in the top 6 or 7 posts in things like the Mystery compilation or 'The Railway Children'? Because he wasn't trying to spam readers or annoy people fighting with him. He was trying to get my attention and he knew I read the comment sections of those posts. Annoying people who came here and happened to read those comments was just an added bonus to him.

11) And these last couple of times, why was the spam getting worse even though there was no more fighting, the Request Post was closed, and I had just posted a bunch of new music? Again, that was Greg's fundamental mistake. That's what made it so obvious that he was doing it. Who else but him would come here and do that? Why would someone else be disgusted that I posted a lot of new music and call me a bad blogger? Because Greg didn't care anything about the music. He never did and probably never has. He just wants to get people to visit his blog, I think, and have a place he can hang out where people won't ban him.

AND WHAT ABOUT THOSE GREG MYSTERIES?:

1) Why, after it was clear that I was not going to turn on comment moderation or turn off anonymous comments, did Greg keep beating this dead horse? Because he kept expecting that his harassing tactics would change my mind. That's why he kept bringing it up. Anybody else would've stopped asking or drifted away by now. He was waiting for the spamming and trolling to take effect and that's why he kept asking me the same question over and over again.

2) Why did his latest comment seem even more frustrated than he had been in the past when I already fully explained myself in the essay? Because he expected that when I posted that essay that I was going to say that I was turning off anonymous comments, but when I didn't, it drove him even crazier. If he wasn't the one spamming, he would've just accepted my explanation and moved on. But it drove him absolutely nuts that his spamming wasn't working. And it also explains why he keeps saying that I'm the one who has ruined the blog by not moderating comments. He thinks it was all the trolling against him that was the problem and he thought spamming and attacking me was the solution. When I wouldn't do what he wanted me to do, he blamed me for not doing comment moderation and so in his mind, I was the obstacle to restoring the Request Post to what it once was. And he resented this because he wasn't able to participate at Isbum's or any other forum in the same way. That's why he obsesses about it over here. He still fails to understand that it was he who ruined the Request Post, not the trolls or me. As long as he's here, it's never going to be any good.

3) Why did he expect me to shut my own blog down? Because if I wasn't going to do what he wanted, he would rather I just blow the whole place up to prevent people from ever saying anything about him here. I think he wanted to still be able to have some place to comment but without the possibility of anonymous people attacking him. That's why he keeps commenting at Isbum's place. He knows Isbum will keep out anonymous people and he hopes that if he doesn't say anything too obnoxious that maybe Isbum will let his comments go through. He's too dense to see the rule about no Greg's there. But since he knows he can't comment there without Isbum deleting it (and God knows how many other places are keeping him out), he knows he's still able to comment here and he's hoping he can do that but without the harassment. He claims not to have read my essay, but he now knows that he's no longer welcome here and that I'll delete his comments when I see them in any other parts of the blog, so if he can't convince me to do comment moderation he would rather I just shut the whole place down. That's also why he didn't care about reporting my blog to Blogger.com before. It's almost too funny. At every turn, he's thwarted.

4) Why did he keep coming back here when things were already pretty quiet? Because he was waiting to see the response to each round of spam. And because he likes obsessively attacking things. And because this is one of the few places where his comments will stay up for a while. And because he's generally vengeful. And I think he's vainly hoping that if I turn off anonymous comments and re-open the Request Post he can still hang out here and things will be peaceful. He knows if he starts a Request Post at his place there won't be enough people for it to work. That's probably why he's never done it at his place. I almost suspect that he figures that if I shut this place down, more people will go over to his place. I know....that sounds pretty irrational to me too.

5) Why was he constantly so outraged about this 'fake' Greg? Because he wasn't. He was just using this as an excuse to give me a reason as to why he was still upset and why I should do moderation. Since he knew the Request Post was closed he couldn't claim I should moderate comments when nobody was fighting with him anymore. And he wasn't about to fake comments insulting himself, so what else could he do? He had to pretend to be 'fake' Greg to give himself an excuse to keep asking me about moderation while having the added bonus of advertising his blog so people would still go over there.


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Here's an example:

'Fake' Greg:
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CAN'T STOP THE MUSIC (1980) - Village People special edition soundtrack

Movie Radio Spots - SciFi Movies

NANCY DREW (1938-1939) - Music themes from the original film classics

THE WIZARD OF OZ - 1950 Lux Radio Theater broadcast with Judy garland

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939) - Deluxe soundtrack edition

THE WIZARD OF OZ - 1939 Maxwell House Good News radio broadcast
# posted by Greg : Tuesday, June 26, 2007 10:17:00 AM



...and the 'real' Greg:
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....and here we go AGAIN! SEE WHAT I MEAN, NOMWL? Same thing I said in the other Comments on your blog's homepage.....and you're going to let THIS sort of shit continue? :-P

I am NOT posting these links to my blog....whoever the asshole is doing this, they THINK they're making people THINK it's me.....but they're too fucking stupid to realize that the profile number of my REAL name (as is in this posting) is DIFFERENT than the profile number THEY have.

Sorry, Nomwl....but you brought this on yourself by NOT moderating your blog's comments!

# posted by Greg : Tuesday, June 26, 2007 8:12:00 PM

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That's why it never made any sense. Who would be that upset about somebody essentially advertising his blog? Anybody pretending to be him just to annoy him would have no reason to think he's going to read the comment section of 'The Railway Children'. And why would this 'fake' Greg have any expectation that a whole lot of other people would read it in an old comment section anyway? And even more stupidly, in this last round of comments, the 'real' Greg had this 'fake' Greg leave a long list of links to his blog, the 'real' Greg leaves an outraged comment claiming that this isn't him after that, and then the 'fake' Greg leaves 3 or 4 updated links to new entries at Greg's blog right after that. Who in their right mind is going to think that that's a 'fake' Greg?

And this 'fake' Greg never says anything bad about Greg or makes any other comment except for leaving links. Again, another Greg trademark (identical to the spamming). In fact, another big tip-off that this was Greg doing this is that he did the same thing two times in a row. He'd leave a comment in the first 6 or 7 posts as 'fake' Greg (or something else I can't remember) under a different blogger profile, he'd leave a comment as the 'real' Greg right after that, and then do a bunch of spamming (different comments in each post) right after that. He's done this same thing the last two times I came in. All practically in unison. Do it once and it might be a coincidence. Do it twice and you're just an idiot.

And I thought it was odd that the 'fake' Greg posted his comments first before the spam. In the past, the spam always seemed to be first to discourage comments. But of course, if the 'real' Greg had the 'fake' Greg post all those links after the spam, people would be a lot less likely to read the advertisements to his blog.

But one of the biggest things that got me to think along these lines was that one of the last pieces of spam I read maybe 3 weeks before I came in to post the Alternative Stage Music, et al. was one saying something like 'You should shut this blog down'. Now at the time it seemed odd because up until then nobody had ever said that. Everybody who came here either wanted to see it stay open or expressed dismay over the situation, but nobody ever wanted me to shut it down. And the rest of the spam here had either been quotes or nonsensical or profane rants, but this was the first one that seemed to address me specifically with a request like that. I didn't think too much about it. I just figured someone didn't like seeing what was happening here so I deleted it, but I still thought it was pretty odd because it didn't make sense. Usually people bothered by the comments would just stop reading them or stay away until things got better. Nobody expressed the feeling that it should go away altogether.

And then I read this most recent comment by Greg saying how I should shut the blog down if I wasn't going to moderate comments. Still, I didn't immediately make the connection, but once I realized what the real method in all this madness was, it all fit neatly into place.

And then later, when I finally read the comment section of the Essay post at home, I saw that Breton Girl and Filmpac had pointed out more things. Breton Girl too noticed how the spam had changed and was now attacking me and the blog. And Filmpac pointed out that Greg had accidentally used his real blogger profile when he cut and pasted some new spam in that comment section. Greg claimed he was just adding to the actual spammer, but if anybody needs any more proof, there it is. If I hadn't been thinking this already, by the time I read that I might've been tempted to think it could still be a coincidence. After all, all of this is just conjecture and circumstantial, and so even with something like using his own blogger profile, etc. it could still be someone else doing it the rest of the time. But all those things that didn't make sense before are so perfectly answered by Greg's twisted motives and behavior that it seems impossible to think anything else.

I think Greg relies on the very tenuous hope that without proof, people will still give him the benefit of the doubt. But it all becomes too obvious when he and the spammer are the only ones still leaving obnoxious comments. No one else has reason to at this point.

Oh, and here's another comment he left pretending to be someone else:

NOMWL, SORRY TO SAY THIS<> THIS SHIT WILL NEVER STOP UNLESS YOU MODERATE YOUR BLOG OR SHUT IT THE HELL DOWN!!!!
# posted by the anality of evil : Thursday, June 28, 2007 8:26:00 AM

He's still trying to convince me that other people are copying his comments and attacking the blog.

Actually, I suppose I would be madder at Greg if he weren't so ridiculous. You probably can't tell, but I'm laughing hysterically right now thinking of how he kept wanting me to turn on comment moderation or get rid of anonymous people and he's been frustrated at every turn. (He can't even get Blogger.com to do his dirty work.) And it has only been my stubborness which has kept me from seriously considering it. But of course, knowing now that it's really just Greg who wants this, you can probably tell I have no intention of ever doing it.

The thing Greg failed to realize is that it was never the trolling or the spamming that really bothered me. The spamming was like a mosquito biting my neck. Greg was like a German Shepherd eating my leg. I'm hardly going to be bothered by the spamming. Greg already ruined the atmosphere here with his treatment of other people; the spamming was only icing on the cake.

You know, I almost suspect the reason that he attacked other people here in the Request Post until he drove them away and later seemed to get along with newer readers here once he had driven out so many other people was that he might've resented and envied people like Isbum, Filmpac, Rocket and others. (Of course, his disgusting treatment of Breton Girl is still a mystery to me since she wasn't posting as much music as those guys, but it probably just fits in with the whole 'Greg is a jerk' theory.) I get the feeling that he was intimidated by those guys and felt the need to put them down, but once he could be the one providing links and info to people then he settled down. And I suspect that's why he wants to hang out here because he wants to be 'king of the hill' and 'big man on campus' here without people criticizing him.

It also explains why he wants to shut this blog down. He probably doesn't want this material hanging around here if he can't lord it over people without getting called on it. I can't really see why I would intimidate him, but maybe he's bothered by anyone who really knows the kind of person he is. Only newer people would tolerate him and allow him to play the role of chief music fulfiller and information dispenser. I would normally think he could do this at his own blog and I still have a hard time understanding why he needs my blog to do it, but that seems to be the only explanation. He may not have enough people coming over to his blog to do it. Failing that, he would like to try and shut down every other place that threatens his sense of being a 'big man'.

Actually, I do kind of hate to psychoanalyze someone like that since it seems unfair, but well forgive any lapse in fair play since he's been attacking my blog. I'm not really all that mad or even irritated at Greg even though it may seem that way. It's a relief to know that I don't have a bunch of malcontents at the blog, but just one really annoying and persistent one. It actually makes me feel a lot better about the blog (though I have to say my opinion of Greg has gone down somewhat).

SO IT'S CLEAR THAT GREG IS DELIBERATELY ATTACKING THIS BLOG WITH SPAM AND LINKS TO HIS OWN BLOG. And he wants to shut it down if he can't get his own way. And if you see any of this spam or any of his comments anywhere on this blog, please ignore them until I can delete them. (And if you want to ignore them at other blogs too, please feel perfectly free.) You can go to his blog if you see something you think is interesting on one of his 'fake' Greg advertisements, but also be aware that you're just validating his childish attacks and his selfish desire to advertise his blog. Still, I don't think you should have to miss out on good music just because the person posting it is.....well, Greg, but just keep in mind who's really advertising his blog. It's certainly not a 'fake' Greg.

And I should be opening up a new Request Post some time in the future, so if you see Greg doing any of that stuff in there too, ignore it.

And to Greg, you're certainly welcome to continue spamming me, but just know that I realize what you're doing, so it isn't going to work. You might as well leave and stay away because I'm going to delete your comments when I see them. (Depending on what they are, I might leave them up in the comment section of the Essay post, but anywhere else and they're going to be deleted along with your spam and advertisements.)

I hate censorship and would normally never do it under any circumstances but Greg is an extreme and isolated case. I'm not deleting his comments for the benefit of anyone else. Not for any of the people who left, any of the trolls who fight with him or because he's cluttering up my blog. I delete them simply because I'm fed up with him showing up here all the time. I don't know how I can make it any plainer. He constantly goes where he's not wanted and I've tried to give him every chance to make a graceful exit, but he insists on attacking blogs where he's not welcome. Anybody else would've stopped by now, but since he is so persistently returning here with his comments, obnoxious behavior, and spamming, I will basically delete his comments whenever I come in. I know it's kind of pain for everyone else to have to read them until they're gone, but try to ignore them. Don't respond to him if you can help it. If you want to fight with him, do it in the comment section of the Essay Post. Thanks!

It's a real shame. He could've been a pretty good member of the blogging community, but he chose this route. He couldn't be satisfied with just getting along with people. Oh, well. His loss, not anybody else's I suppose.


P.S. And I suspect Greg's reaction to this will be to deny it and continue to show up here. He may even continue to spam or make even worse comments pretending to be other people. If so, just continue to ignore it. Thanks!