Hello? Is this mic on?

So, what is a Hair-Shirt Audiophile anyway, you ask? Well, I was planning on the answer to THAT question as being my first post. Instead, I have a question of my own: How do you get flagged as a potential spam blogger before you've even owned the blog a day or even made a single post?

To explain, after months of trepidation about writing a blog or starting a website for other Hair Shirt Audiophiles or Hair Shirt Audiophile Wannabes (patience – the definition IS coming), and lots of encouragement from my friends (thanks guys), two nights ago, I finally bit the bullet and registered my first blog – this one! It was about 3 AM and I was sleepy and so I figured I'd done enough for the night. Hey, I'd started my first blog!

But about 14 hours later, this shows up in my inbox:

Your blog at: http://hair-shirtaudiophile.blogspot.com/ has been identified as a potential spam blog.

It went on to explain that it used automatic spam detection, which is inherently fuzzy (not to be confused with "Warm and....") and that occasionally a blog like mine is flagged incorrectly.

Gee, ya think? Ironic that a near geezer like myself, who only even knows about stuff like this because it's sort of part of my daytime job (I'm a technical recruiter) and, therefore I tend to hang out with people a decade or two my junior who play on the internet for a living, on his first attempt at publishing something gets a greeting that essentially says:

"Welcome to the internet. Now shut up. We're gonna check you out"

Anyway, I tried to chalk it up to the blog being new (standard procedure, right?) and maybe because I didn't post anything within 12 hours or so. But when I asked friends, "have you ever heard of this?" The response was, "Uh, no dude. That's weird."

Well, I'll remain optimistic, and hope that whoever is reviewing my blog is reading these words now :

Uh, hello? Is this mic on? Oh, and by the way, your fuzzy logic is broken. FIX IT!!