Help! My comments on other people’s blog posts are going into their Spam folder ***UPDATED: Problem Solved***

Linda Lee/Lady Quixote

Please scroll to the bottom for an update on how my problem was fixed!

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This photo doesn’t have anything to do with my comments languishing in Spam Purgatory, but isn’t it an amazing sunrise? I took this picture exactly one month ago today, when I got up to let our dogs out. I’m an early bird, so I’ve seen a lot of sunrises in my life. But I don’t remember ever seeing one quite like this.

Okay, back to the topic — for the past week at least, I have tried to leave comments on several different blogs, most of them blogs that I have successfully left comments on in the past. But now my comments are disappearing as soon as I try to post them. I don’t even get the familiar notice saying that my comment is awaiting moderation. Just *poof* — my comment is gone. And when I check back later, it is still gone.

I believe I know what probably raised the alarm with Askimet, the WordPress spam controller. I will tell you what I did, so other serious bloggers can avoid doing the same thing. (Unless you really are a spammer, in which case, please stop.)

This is what I did right before I started having trouble: I changed my gravatar name twice within the past couple of weeks. Originally, my writing pen name was Linda Lee. But then I discovered that another Linda Lee has published some books on Amazon. My goal is to publish my memoir, hopefully before the end of this year, and to publish at least a couple of other books, as well. I don’t want people confusing me with the other Linda Lee, so I decided to use my Twitter name, Lady Quixote, all by itself, as my writing pen name.

After making this decision, I changed my gravatar name to Lady Quixote. But then people started referring to me as ‘Lady’ in their comments, even some of my old blogging friends, and that just felt weird. So finally I changed my gravatar name to Lady Quixote/Linda Lee, mainly to let my long time blogger friends know that it was me.

And that’s when my comments to Anna Waldherr of A Lawyer’s Prayer and A Voice Reclaimed, to Mitch Teemley, to Lauren at Lucky Otters Haven, to Paul Martin at My $.02, to The Bluebird of Bitterness blog, and to many other bloggers, stopped posting. 😦

I’m sorry, Askimet. Deeply regretful, WordPress. I promise to be good, en.gravatar! Really and truly, I do! Please get me out of Spam Purgatory. Please!

Any advice in the comments below would be most welcome. Thank you for stopping by. God bless. Here’s a great big grandma ((HUG)) if you want one. 💘💘💘

UPDATE 14 January: The problem is finally solved! First, I asked for help from WP customer service, but I got nowhere with them. Then, in a couple of the comments below, I was advised to contact Akismet: https://akismet.com/contact/

The morning after I sent my request for help, they sent me a form via email for me to fill out. I did, and within just a few minutes they had solved the problem. Now my comments are posting on other people’s blogs, and no longer going to spam purgatory. Yaaaay!!!!!!

63 thoughts on “Help! My comments on other people’s blog posts are going into their Spam folder ***UPDATED: Problem Solved***”

  1. Sue Cass January 8, 2020 / 7:19 am

    I can’t help you there but I really love the sunrise picture. God did good! 🙂

    Liked by 4 people

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 7:24 am

      Isn’t that an amazing sunrise! I was outside with the dogs again at sunrise this morning. It was beautiful, but nothing like this. It makes me wish I were an artist, so I could turn it into a painting. Minus the electrical wires. 🙂

      Liked by 3 people

  3. mrsmariposa2014 January 8, 2020 / 7:57 am

    I have a different comment issue going on- my discussion settings keep randomly turning off on their own. 🙄 I’ll post something and find later there’s no box for anyone to leave a comment! I repost and that usually helps, though last night, even that wasn’t working! I think there’s just a lot of wacky things going on with the commenting section in general. I’m sorry you are dealing with issues, too. But, thanks for a beautiful picture! Love it! ☺

    Liked by 2 people

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 8:29 am

      I just went to your blog, read your amazing poem, and tried to post a comment. But my comment disappeared. 😦

      When you get a chance, can you please look to see if my comment is in your spam folder? If it is, maybe you can approve it and get me out of Spam Purgatory.

      Liked by 1 person

    • seekingdivineperspective January 24, 2020 / 12:58 pm

      I think I did try to comment on one of yours and didn’t see a comment button. That’s a shame. It’s hard enough to get to all the posts I want to read, and I probably never returned to try commenting again. Just know that there are probably more people enjoying your posts than you are seeing.

      Liked by 2 people

  4. Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 8:31 am

    Thank you so much, Ryan! I remember that you had an issue with comments going into your spam. I will reread that post now.

    Like

  5. bluebird of bitterness January 8, 2020 / 9:02 am

    I don’t recall having found any of your comments in my spam folder recently (I always check before deleting), but WP can be pretty wonky sometimes. Hope the problem gets resolved. I love the sunrise photograph! ❤️

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 2:01 pm

      Thank you! I have posted several comments on your blog the past few days, including today, and they just disappear the moment I hit the tab to post them. So far, WP Customer Service is telling me: “It’s up to the owner of the blog site to decide if they want to post your comments.” Grrr.

      Liked by 1 person

  6. Paul Martin January 8, 2020 / 9:08 am

    I haven’t seen any comments from anyone in a while. Then again, I haven’t been posting much because of my living situation and because I’ve been in school for my work…I hope to be full swing blogging, and reading and commenting by mid February!🤞

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 2:06 pm

      It’s not you, Paul, and it’s apparently not me, either. I posted two comments on your blog today and they just vanished the instant I hit the tab to post them. WP customer service is telling me things like “It’s up to the blog owners to decide if they want to post your comments.” Grrr.

      I’m praying for your housing situation. I’m trying not to worry about you and your family but the truth is that I am worried. I love your blog and look forward to your posts.

      Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 6:26 pm

      Hi, Lydia. I found your comment in my spam folder, along with the “real” spam comments. This is just crazy. I contacted WP customer service and was told things like “It’s up to the blog owners to decide if they want to post your comments.” But this issue isn’t about bloggers not wanting my comments. I have been posting on some of these blogs since 2014, and I consider them my friends.

      Liked by 2 people

      • Lydia Potter January 8, 2020 / 7:19 pm

        Ugh that’s horrid. A good number of blogs are still not letting me comment.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 10:07 pm

          When did this start happening? I just noticed my comments not posting about a week or so ago. I thought it was because I had changed my gravatar name slightly, but maybe not. Do you have any idea what may have started your comment issues?

          Liked by 1 person

        • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 14, 2020 / 7:57 pm

          Hey, Lydia — my comments are no longer going to spam purgatory, thanks to help from these guys: https://akismet.com/contact/

          The following morning after I sent my request for help, they sent me a form via email for me to fill out. I did, and within just a few minutes they had solved the problem. I hope it works for you!

          Liked by 1 person

  8. ibikenyc January 8, 2020 / 11:49 am

    I also can’t help you, but OH that sunrise! 🙂

    Hope you get it all sorted out TODAY!

    Liked by 2 people

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 8, 2020 / 2:10 pm

      Thank you! So far, I’m not getting any helpful answers from WP customer service. I’m thinking I may need to start a whole new WP account, if it doesn’t get fixed.

      Liked by 1 person

      • ibikenyc January 8, 2020 / 3:08 pm

        Oh, dear! I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that. What a nuisance 😦

        (Keep us ha-ha posted! 😛 )

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Nyssa The Hobbit January 9, 2020 / 2:29 am

    Have you tried to leave anything on mine? (I use a different spam plugin.)

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 9, 2020 / 6:46 am

      Hi, Nyssa. I haven’t tried to comment on your blog recently. I did try a couple of times several months ago, and my comments did not go through then. But that was before I started having all this trouble everywhere, and I assumed you just did not want any comments on those posts. I don’t remember what the posts were about, now.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Nyssa The Hobbit January 9, 2020 / 1:27 pm

        Hard to say. Could’ve been WordPress, could’ve been my plugin, comments could’ve been turned off…. 😛

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Margaret from soulfood101blog January 9, 2020 / 8:07 pm

    Happened to me too. I got with askimet and they fixed it. It took them a couple of hours. I went to the help section. Someone emailed me and they resolved it 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 9, 2020 / 8:40 pm

      Oh, that’s wonderful! So I need to contact askimet, not WP customer service? I will try that tomorrow. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

      • Margaret from soulfood101blog January 10, 2020 / 8:45 am

        I wish I still had the emails I’d send you the address. I remember it took me longer to find the right link to click than it did for them to fix it. But yeah, I told them what was happening, and they fixed it quickly.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Margaret from soulfood101blog January 10, 2020 / 8:59 am

        I just did a search and what I did was go to the wordpress support page. Or wordpress and click the “support” tab at the top. Then in the search tab I typed “help getting wordpress support” out of the results there was a “Help! Getting WordPress.com Support” I clicked that and there was a “where should I go for support” In that block there is a “if your comments are being marked as spam contact our Akismet team ” link. If you click that there is a contact form to fill out. I hope this helps Linda 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

        • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 10, 2020 / 11:38 am

          Thank you so much!!!! I will try that later. We have a lot going on, a granddaughter visiting today from out of state for the first time, a wake tonight, a funeral tomorrow, and next week, my husband and I are taking his daughter to the hospital to have a six hour surgery. So, I may have to let this matter go for a few more days. But thank you so much!!!!!

          Liked by 1 person

          • Margaret from soulfood101blog January 10, 2020 / 1:07 pm

            Yes, yes, this is by far not that high up on the list compared with all the stuff you have going on. Praying for you and your family to get through all this 🙂 🙂

            Liked by 1 person

  12. successbmine January 9, 2020 / 8:36 pm

    I have had the problem on one blog that it claims I’m a bot and refuses to publish it. I have tried wording it in several different ways including copying and pasting something from the post, all to no avail. I don’t know what is different now because it’s quite a while since that happened. Who knows what goes on with this technology? It’s a whole different world out there, and it never ceases to baffle me in one way or another. Hope you get it figured out, Linda.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 9, 2020 / 8:42 pm

      Hahaha, I love what you said: “Who knows what goes on with this technology? It’s a whole different world out there, and it never ceases to baffle me in one way or another.” Me, too!

      Liked by 1 person

  13. luckyotter January 10, 2020 / 5:08 pm

    Hi Linda Lee,

    Yes, that is an absolutely GORGEOUS sunrise!

    I just saw the link to this post in…you guessed it! My spam folder! I have no idea how to help you with this. You can check with one of WP’s “happiness engineers” and see if they can fix it for you or tell you what you can do.

    I’m glad my Akismet isn’t automatically deleting all my spam, because it it did, I would never have seen this at all! Hope you get it fixed soon.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 10, 2020 / 6:52 pm

      Thank you for finding me in your spam! This is a mess. Communicating with my blogger friends is my favorite thing about blogging.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. Invisibly Me January 12, 2020 / 4:26 am

    I’m not sure how useful this will be as you may have already done it, but drop Akismet a note if you haven’t already. They’ll likely ask for an example of a blog where you’ve left a comment that didn’t ‘stick’. It’s happened to me two, maybe three times. Turns out they marked me as spam, perhaps because I comment on a lot of blogs, who knows, so they just had to clear my name in the court of WordPress law and voila, all sorted!

    Contact form is here if you need it > https://akismet.com/contact/

    Caz x

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 12, 2020 / 8:54 am

      Thank you!! I actually sent them a message asking for help just a few hours ago, still waiting to hear back. I greatly appreciate it.

      Liked by 1 person

  15. Beverley January 24, 2020 / 5:51 pm

    I am glad that the problem was fixed. Thank you for the advice. I find your partial testimony on Ryan’s blog comment quite interesting. I am looking forward to your new book. Have a blessed weekend.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Lady Quixote/Linda Lee January 24, 2020 / 9:32 pm

      Oh, wow. You don’t know how much you have blessed me right now. Happy tears!! ❤❤❤

      Like

  16. SLIMJIM September 11, 2020 / 2:57 pm

    I followed your instruction! Waiting for them to get back to me

    Like

      • SLIMJIM September 11, 2020 / 6:51 pm

        Aww thank you for your prayer Linda and thanks for fishing out my comment!

        Liked by 1 person

  17. lisa thomson-author October 20, 2021 / 7:11 pm

    Thanks for writing this, Linda. I’ve googled why my comments are disappearing on blogs, and your post came up. So helpful. Waiting now for Akismet to contact me. We’ll see if this disappears. Ha.

    Like

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