The End of “Gowanus Lounge”

This morning I discovered that the domain for Gowanus Lounge had been appropriated by a commercial site. I learned this afternoon that the domain had been sold.

Gowanus Lounge had been the project of founder Robert Guskind, who died (too soon) in March of 2009. Archived content from Gowanus Lounge is now available at a new, “memorial” domain, bobguskind.com.

I’ll be updating my links to the old Gowanus Lounge site to the new domain in his name. It saddens me to have to do this, but I must, since Bob’s work is no longer available at the original domain. It’s clear to me that the new proprietor of the domain expects to garner hits through links to Bob’s old work. I refuse to support that.

How to find links

Two Google keywords let you find links from a specific domain to another:

link:
finds links to the specified domain
site:
limits the search to links from the specified domain

So, to find links from my blog to the old Gowanus Lounge domain, I searched this in Google:

link:gowanuslounge.com site:flatbushgardener.blogspot.com

[bit.ly]

Links

Robert “Bob” Guskind Memorial Site
Much Ado About the Gowanus Lounge, That Greenpoint Blog, 2010-01-03

Comment Moderation Temporarily Enabled

Update 2007.10.13: Hydroponics spam continues. Comments remain moderated. Permanently, I suspect.
Update 2007.10.10: Today it’s hydroponics spam. Comments remain moderated.


Due to Costa Rican spammers (you don’t want to know), I have to temporarily enable comment moderation for the blog. In compensation, I’ve also temporarily turned off word verification (CAPTCHA) for new comments.

They’re following the usual spammer pattern: they target posts that are at least a year old, put in some boiler-plate text about “how wonderful your blog is”, followed by a link to the spam site. Easily recognizable, but a pain in the @$$.

We’ll see how long this takes to settle down …

Meta: Spammers will be shot on sight

[Update 2007.04.18 12:30 EDT: Corrected typos. Masked “language”.]

This comment was left on Ths Transetorey Life an hour ago [midnight, 2007.04.18]:

Hi, I like to read alot [sic] of random blogs daily. I average about 15 blogs
everyday. Your blog is among the best that i [sic] have visited today, aside
from some of the other mindless blogs i’ve [sic] read. Keep up the good work!
I run my own site. It pretty much covers online auctions [link to #$!) here].
Come and check it out if you get time.

How considerate of you to to spam me with a comment on a post in which I share my thoughts and feelings on the 5th anniversary of September 11.

$&#* you, too.