For readers unfamiliar with content management systems like [Movable Type](http://movabletype.org) (which this site uses), one annoying trend is [comment spam](http://www.elise.com/mt/archives/000246concerning_spam.php), where an automated system will place comments on various articles, linking back to a target site — often one that sells cigarettes, for whatever reason.
The original goal for comment spam was apparently to boost Google page rankings for ne’er-do-well sites by increasing their number of “incoming links.” Movable Type and Google are now smart enough to keep this from happening, but the spam comments persist. [MT-Blacklist](http://www.jayallen.org/projects/mt-blacklist/), a plug-in, does a good job helping sort out the valid comments from the crap, but some of the older articles on the site which pre-date MT-Blacklist still have spam comments.
Which brings us to today. Every time someone adds a comment to the site, I get a copy of it in my email. This morning I got a strange one:
> Q: if two players are presented with a diamond flush(Ace, Queen, 10, 7, and 3) in the five community cards and player A has in the hole (ace of hearts and queen of clubs), and Player B has in the hole (jack of diamonds,and 9 of spade). who is the winner?,and please explain why player A or B is the winner.thankyou
I get a lot of off-topic questions, but this one seemed perversely far afield. (Even though I knew the answer: Player B, right?) Only when I pulled up the entry did I realize that the comment directly above it was a leftover spam ad for “seven card stud x play poker online x free texas holdem…” So the new “question” was really comment spam designed to boost exposure to the first comment spam.
It was meta-spam.
On one hand, I was sort of impressed. The spamming system either kept track of everywhere it placed its first spam and went back for a follow-up (months later, it seems), or searched the web for copies of the first spam and tacked on the second.
Here’s to you, Mr. Spammer, for a hard day’s coding. Now go to hell.