Over a bit more than a month, I have erased more than a thousand fake comments from my Residua website (“Fakers’ Hypertext,” August 14, 2014). Peddlers of fashionable replicas have picked “Hypertext” (December 21, 1989) for their networking purposes. From day to day, I erase all their comments without delay. Unsuccessful, they eased off the last couple of days. Yesterday and today, I had not a single comment on that particular piece. Instead, the fakers have picked “Howling and Barking” (January 5, 1996). Another swell of fake comments is thus in progress, and it is hard to guess when it will end, if ever. If anything else, someone behind the fakers’ attack is being funny. Howling and barking, indeed. If only they could, they would surely bite, as well.

Addendum I (January 4, 2015)

The number of fakers’ comments has dwindled to insignificance as of late. Ever since the last couple of weeks of the last year, there have been two or three per week. All told, there have been nearly two thousand fake comments so far, of which more than six-hundred concern the second piece of writing. More than two hundred of them have gone to other pieces, most notably “Corruptissima res publica, plurimae leges” (May 8, 1980). This quote from Tacitus, which is still pertinent in all countries that came into existence after the breakup of Yugoslavia, has attracted nearly a hundred fake comments. The fakers’ choices have delighted me over the five months or so that the attack has lasted. Whoever has selected the pieces for fake comment is a clever chap. Congratulations!

Addendum II (August 4, 2015)

The fakers’ comments wound up a few months ago. To be precise, it was the middle of June. Looking back, “Hypertext” (December 21, 1989) is the winner with one-thousand one-hundred and thirty-four fake comments. “Howling and Barking” (January 5, 1996) follows with seven-hundred and sixteen comments. All the other pieces attracted two-hundred and forty-two comments. This adds up to two-thousand and ninety-two fake comments over some ten months. At any rate, the fakers’ attack is over for now, but my website will surely attract more shenanigans in the future. And the peddlers of fashionable replicas may end up among the least troublesome of visitors to the site. One can never tell with the World Wide Web, which is changing by the day. And all over the place.