My Residua website is under attack. I am getting an avalanche of comments on a single piece of writing. It is “Hypertext” (December 21, 1989). The comments come from many an online fashion outlet. I checked only a few of them, and they came from fake Channel, Louboutin, Air Jordan, Louis Vuitton, and Mulberry websites. The comments themselves are inane at best. Most of them are in bad English, suggesting that Google Translate was used to generate them. Yesterday evening I found twenty-one such comment, which I deleted at once, and this morning there were seventy-seven of them. Dealing with so many comments is rather tedious. First I must delete them from my website, and then I must delete all the electronic-mail messages to the effect that these comments are awaiting my attention. It is anyone’s guess how much longer the attack will last. But why are my ruminations about hypertext attracting all the attention? Apparently, all the online outlets involved are connected. Chances are that they all come from China. At any rate, they are peddling fakes in concert. Comments to websites like mine provide nodes in the web of a myriad connections. And growing connections between all websites chosen as relays cannot but increase the chance of reaching potential customers. Behold, the linking of all the texts ever written, including all the comments on them, was exactly the hypertext idea. Good luck fakers!

To Theodore Nelson

Addendum I (August 15, 2014)

The attack is relentless. Before I went to sleep last night, I deleted one-hundred and sixteen comments on the piece about hypertext. This morning I found seven of them. By now, I am not only deleting them, but I am also marking them as spam. I have no idea whether this will be of any help with so many unwanted comments, but I certainly hope so. But my main problem is with the electronic-mail messages about the comments. My inbox is rather limited in size, and these messages clog it up in no time. Although I do not receive too many messages worth worrying about, the avalanche of comments makes it hard for the few messages of importance to ever reach me. This is true especially at night. But how much longer will the attack last? Even better, will it ever end? If not, what am I to do? Puzzling questions, these.

Addendum II (August 16, 2014)

My fears appear to have been exaggerated. The number of comments has plummeted since yesterday morning. To be exact, there have been only fifteen of them during the last twenty-four hours. In short, the attack seems to be over. If any unease remains this morning, it is because I have no idea why the number of comments on the piece about hypertext has changed so markedly in such a short time. Alas, this is yet another mystery of the World Wide Web.

Addendum III (August 17, 2014)

Well, the number of comments is up again. There has been seventy-five of them over the last twenty-four hours. The attack is still on, that is. The best I can do at this juncture is to field it. Given my poor understanding of the World Wide Web, further speculations about the attack are useless. Amen.

Addendum IV (October 14, 2014)

After two full months, the attack seems to have petered out. As of a bit less than a month ago, most fake comments went to another piece, but their number also dwindled to zero the last few days (“Fakers’ Howling and Barking,” September 18, 2014). From the beginning, there were about one-thousand and one-hundred comments to the first piece and around two-hundred comments to the second. In addition, there were close to thirty fake comments to a variety of other pieces. Even if a few more such comments come my way in the future, I do not expect any real trouble. Spamming them all each and every day seems to work. Even the fakers from around the world have better things to do. But I do not feel victorious at all, I hasten to add. Who knows how many more miseries are lying in wait on the World Wide Web?

Addendum V (October 15, 2014)

In response to my last addendum, victorious as it was, the number of fake comments unexpectedly surged this morning. Nineteen of them commented on “Howling and Barking” (January 5, 1996), and one on another piece of my writing. Interestingly, each one of them advertises cheap Ugg boots. But it is clear that there is someone behind the attack who reads what I write. The last surge was a joke of sorts, and the joke was on me. Which is why I will stop boasting of my success with spamming from now on. Let the attack peter out by itself. In the fullness of time, the fakers will move on to more promising websites as vehicles for the promotion of their cheap replicas. And I wish them all the luck in this ludicrous world of ours. It is nothing but a replica of a real world, anyhow.