Despite the fact that WordPress admins know about the phenomenon of junk followers, they continue to pile up. I now have almost 500 followers of my blog, but from what I’ve been able to determine from poking around, only about 200 of these are real live people who are interested in what I have to say.

The remainder are bot-generated follows, each of which is attached to some spam website or other.

WordPress provides an option for reporting spammed content, which I do every time one of these shows up; an example is user “masoomzaidi” who attached his name to “http://bulkemailcompany.wordpress.com“. You’ll notice that the referenced blog has already been terminated for terms of service violations.

Many of the blogs which have been so spammed have also been terminated, but I really, really hope that WordPress can figure out a comprehensive solution to this; thus far, there is no way to remove unwanted followers or clear out deadwood.

As for people who do this – please know that I hold you in the lowest regard. Behaviour of this nature is on the same level as spam comments in other people’s blogs, and shows that you have the morals and ethics of a honey badger. Obviously your mothers didn’t teach you anything about honesty and decency – or if they did, they would weep bitter tears of shame to know that you are stooping to such ignorant and repugnant strategies to monetize your product or service. Now: put on a dunce cap and go sit in the corner for the rest of the day. Like this:

The Old Wolf has spoken.