Can someone please unsubscribe an unwanted spam subscriber from my blog for me?
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I just recently got a notice that someone by the name of Writer Jobs had subscribed to my blog. This subscriber also made a generic spammy comment solicitation to my latest post which linked back to their site, a site which to me is a spam blog. I quickly deleted the comment without even posting it. This person has no wordpress blog themselves, only a blogspot one, which only has one post on it that was created very recently and which is a solicitation for their services. Also this person has multiple versions of the exact same gravatar profile, but at slightly different addresses. Ex. http://he.gravatar.com/easywriters and http://en.gravatar.com/easywriters
And their very name Writer Jobs is like a neon sign of spam solicitation to me.These things immediately raised red flags and to me are strong indicators of a spam solicitation blog, as the blog has no real content, and only seeks to direct people to sign up for their services. I am also concerned that this person will copy my content, since I only post my own original poems and stories and create new writing regularly. A Google search and some further research of the site creator’s name and links revealed that the person is indeed a spammer.Therefore, my question is this:
Can someone please unsubscribe this Writer Jobs from my blog? I do not want them to be subscribed to my blog. I do not want them to receive a copy of each of my new posts.
Sorry for the long-winded and detailed explanation of my request, but I was searching for answers to this very question and as per airodyssey’s comment on this topic here: (https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/unsubscribe?replies=24) that directs us to contact staff and ask them for help if we want someone to be unsubscribed from our blog, I am providing a solid rationale for my request.
I would be very grateful if someone is able to help me, and I sincerely thank you for your time and your help!
PS:
By the way, I strongly, strongly recommend to WordPress.com that they add a feature to all blogs that allows one to unsubscribe any subscribers from ones own blog as one so chooses. This would be extremely helpful in avoiding the problem of unwanted and/or spam subscribers.
WordPress needs to be aware of the fact that its not just spam comments that can appear on blogs, but spam/unwanted subscribers as well, and while it is easy to delete spam comments, it is impossible to remove unwanted and/or spam subscribers on one’s own. The creation of such a feature would immediately resolve and address the problem of deleting unwanted subscribers that I and others are having. Other social network sites such as YouTube already allow you to unsubscribe people who are subscribed to you, so please install such a feature soon! It would be truly appreciated!
Blog url: http://scriptorwrites.wordpress.com/ -
While you aren’t able to remove subscribers from your public site you are able to control your privacy options at Settings -> Privacy. There you can set a site to private and have full control over who can access and subscribe to content. We have more details about this at:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/settings/privacy-settings/
For public blogs anyone can subscribe and while each user can remove their own subscriptions we aren’t able to manually remove subscribers for you.
If they post spam comments, just mark as Spam to educate our system or add them to your comment blacklist.
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So if I set my blog to private, removed the unwanted spam subscriber, and then set my blog to public again, would I still retain all of my current subscribers, or would I lose all of them in the process?
By setting my blog to private, will I lose all of my current subscribers? If not, would it even be possible to remove a current subscriber after setting my blog to private, or would I still be unable to remove any current subscribers?
Please help me, I want to know if this solution would work to remove unwanted subscribers from my blog. Perhaps this is finally at last the much sought-after solution to help others that want to remove unwanted subscribers as well.
Thank you very much!
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PS: Also, FYI, I just wanted to let you know that I am not the only user having problems with this exact same unwanted spam subscriber; here is an example of another user who just recently had this exact same unwanted spam subscriber subscribing to their blog as well:
If there is absolutely no way of removing a subscriber from a blog in any way at all, even after making a blog private, then I would request that this Writer Jobs spam subscriber be blocked from accessing wordpress.com altogether.
As the other user says:
“I understand, from having browsed around the WP site, that it is possible to contact WP’s administrative/customer support staff and request that a follower be denied access to the site. True, this requires sufficient provocation, but there is grounds enough to go to the Support staff and request this “user/follower” be blocked/banned from accessing WP based on their site and the nature of their business – i.e. that they only troll WP blogs in an attempt to con money out of writers who do not yet know how to spot these scams.
I do not know if this can be done as a full access block, or even if that would work since it’s not terribly difficult to change ISPs/access points/e-mails, but it is worth asking anyway.”
Please help.
Thanks.
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No, what I meant was that setting your blog to private is the only way to block subscribers.
At this time, there is no way to remove specific subscribers.
In order to subscribe to a blog, a user must have a valid email address, and in order to include any details about themselves, they must have a valid WordPress.com account. This is way too much work for your typical spammer, so I doubt the trend will catch on.
Also, the only damage they could do is just sit in your subscriber list.
If this becomes more of a trend, we’ll look into way of marking subscribers as spam, but for now subscribing is a still a user’s right and not something that is controlled by a blog’s administrator (besides just making your blog private).
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No, with all due respect, you misunderstood my questions. I was asking if by setting my blog to private, would I then be able to remove the offending subscriber, and then set my blog to public again while still retaining all of my legitimate subscribers. Don’t worry, I already tried this and it did not work. Thank you.
And no, setting my blog to private does not give me the ability to block any of my current subscribers, such as this spammer scam artist that I do not want to be subscribed to my blog. So this is clearly not the solution here.
Furthermore,anyone can set up a “valid” email address and plug in a few phony details to make a wordpress account. Setting up a wordpress account only takes a few seconds, and thereafter, subscribing to any number of unsuspecting blogs only takes a few seconds and a click of a mouse to confirm. So it is not a lot of work at all.
Within seconds after clicking confirm, a spammer can be subscribed to any number of wordpress blogs. This is wrong, and wordpress needs to correct this problem. WordPress needs to have a way to prevent spammers and scammers from subscribing to blogs in the first place, and at the very least give users the option to remove such shady, scamming, unsavory and unwanted subscribers. WordPress owes its users this function.
And no, they could potentially do quite a lot more damage than “just sit in my subscriber list.” They are receiving a copy of each of my posts, which is my original creative work, which they could then copy and publish themselves elsewhere on one of their own scammy blogs and claim it as their own. I do not want an unsavory, sleazy, trolling scammer to recieve all of my original, unpublished work.
It is my right as a wordpress user, blogger, and creator of original work, to decide who I want to be and who can be subscribed to my blog, including the right to remove current subscribers who are obviously nothing more than trolling scammers. Setting my blog to private is not a solution to this, because I still cannot remove this person from being subscribed to my blog.
I have a right to not be forced to have spammers, trolls, and scammers subscribed to my blog. This is a tremendous hole in wordpress’s system, and this problem needs to be remedied immediately. It is wrong that faithful, legitimate wordpress users and bloggers are arbitrarily forced by wordpress to have spam subscribers to their blogs with no way to remove them.
Subscribing is not a user’s right. A user does not have a right to scam me, troll me, or spam me with a fake spam subscription. I have the right not to be forced to have unsavory, spammer, or any otherwise undesirable, unnecessary, and unwanted subscribers to my blog.
Are you telling me that there is abolutely no circumstance under which wordpress would remove an unwanted subscriber from a blog? That a stalker, a rapist, an abusive ex-husband has the so-called “right” to subscibe to his wife’s blog, and that there is absolutely nothing that wordpress would do about it, under any circumstances?
The unwillingness and refusal of wordpress to do anything about the serious problem of unwanted, shady, and dubious subscribers leaves users wide open to the risk of theft of their original material, scams, trolling, stalkers, or worse.
The unwillingness and refusal of wordpress to do anything about this problem reveals a gaping hole in the safety, security, trustworthiness, and potential liability of the wordpress blogging model. WordPress users should be able to trust and rely on wordpress to keep them safe from trolls, spammers, scammers, and otherwise unwanted subscribers to their blog, who could and who do present a much greater risk than just “sitting in your subscriber list”.
And why would wordpress want to force users at any and all costs and risks to themselves to have spammers, scammers, trolls, and stalkers subscribed to their blogs? To me this flies in the face of reason, and opens wordpress to potential liability if a stalker subscribes and tracks a victim through their wordpress blog.
This is wrong, and users must be given a remedy for this problem immediately. The fact that wordpress is willing to leave its users wide open to this risk says a lot about their commitment to the safety and security of the wordpress user and blogger community.
Thank you very much.
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Thanks very much for your thoughtful response.
To clear up any confusion, if you change your blog settings to “Private,” only the users that you choose will be able to see or respond to any of your blog posts. Subscribers will not be able to see your posts without your having added them as a user:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/adding-users/The reason it isn’t possible to remove subscribers from a public blog — or even a blog that was made private and then returned to public — is because anyone can continue to sign up. Similarly, if someone is spamming your site, they can do so without signing up to be a subscriber. If your blog is public, anyone can view it. For example, if I subscribed to your blog, but you removed me, I could still visit your site as long as it is kept public.
On the other hand, if you have someone who is spamming your site or a WordPress.com user who is violating our Terms of Service, please let us know about it:
http://en.wordpress.com/complaints/
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