Recently, I received a series of comments, four actually, which supposedly came from different people BUT what intrigued me was that all of those comments came from the same IP address. The comments were in response to my post titled “My Homepage Text Copied By A Fellow Filipino Designer“.

It’s quite obvious that this site (www.ROMELO.com) is powered by Wordpress which is a blogging software and because it’s basically a blog, the comment form or commenting is enabled by default (which is also how I want it). You see, my comment form is open to everyone which means that you don’t need to register in order to post a comment but you are required to enter a Name and an E-mail address (as well as your comment or message).

Now, when a comment is posted by a visitor or guest, Wordpress does not only records the Name, E-mail and Comment or Message of the commenter. It also records the IP address of the commenter but this piece of information is hidden and it is not shown to the public. Only the blog administrator can see it either in the blog’s comment admin or in the comment e-mail notification which is sent to me when someone leaves a comment.

I’ve already deleted two of the comments that were posted but I still have a copy of them saved in my e-mail program.

As you can see from the screenshots, the comments came from the same IP address which was 125.252.**.***. Now, using IP2Location.com’s service I found out that that IP address is currently assigned to a certain company here in the Philippines (see screenshots).

(Screenshots were removed because they contained information about the company and I was advised not to involve the company since the company has nothing to do with the action or actions of an employee or employees even if it was done during company time.)

I then searched Google using the company name which gave me some promising results and it also confirmed that such a company exist. The next thing I did is, I went back to the website in question to check something and there it was, the same company was listed in his profile.

I also noticed that the website involve, which is also powered by Wordpress, has changed its theme and now uses Latin text (lorem ipsum) for placement.

To tie everything up, I called the company’s number and asked for the person and guest what, he was there and yes, I did use my home phone. Well, I would have used a mobile phone if I had one with me but my wife took it with her so I was left with the land phone.

So, it seems that these comments which are coming from the same IP address is actually coming from one company here in the Philippines and that’s not all, it is also where the involved person is currently working.

Here is what, I’m not sure if the comments I received actually came from different people (although one did use a valid e-mail address and name which I was able to verify) within that IP location or if its actually just one person using different names to create the illusion that multiple people are commenting.

Now, if the comments are actually coming from different people then what I don’t understand is that these people are supposed to be professionals. You know, working for an international company says a lot about their characters but why are they spending their valuable company time posting silly comments about my reaction to what this certain person did.

Please, was it my fault if I caught him using my “copy” which I’ve been using for almost three years on my website? Guys think, you are also in the marketing business (as stated in your company’s website) and I’m sure you create a lot of marketing materials for your clients and part of that is “copywriting”. I’m sure you wouldn’t want anybody using your marketing whatever without your company’s permission, right?

I’ve been doing a lot of writing on my blogs and I can admit to myself that I’m not really a writer BUT I do try my best to come up with something. Writing an article with 2,000 words like the one I did for Game! Magazine is not easy for me to do. It actually took me one week to finish that article.

Writing is hard (specially for someone who is not a writer but tries to be one), it is even harder than creating a design for a website and I’m sure you guys know about that, right? Like I’ve said, since marketing is part of your company’s service offerings.

Now, if it’s just one person, in that IP location, commenting using different names then there is really nothing more I can say, except maybe, try doing something else that is more worthwhile?

Here is the thing, your friend or collegue or whatever he is to you made a mistake and he was caught. As a blogger, I blogged about it and I’m pretty sure I presented my case clearly.

I’ve also made a few mistakes myself and I’ve been also called out once. It happened a few years ago when I was still using my own content management system which I wrote using ASP. It was a very crude and unpolished piece of web programming.

You see, back then, my guestbook was tied with my mailing list, so, signing my guestbook means also signing-up for the mailing list. I found out later that it wasn’t a very good idea because one person complained and I was called out in public. I tried to apologize but, unfortunately, the person already abandoned the website where he had posted his complaint.

What I’m trying to say is learn from our mistakes and try to seek good advise from more senior people in the industry. Look, if I hadn’t consulted other people then I would have made the mistake of posting screenshots which shows information about a company which has really nothing to do in all of this.

Note to those coming from you know where: You’ll notice that you are now being redirected to this post (that is, if my little redirection thing works, if not then you won’t) . Thank you!

(Upgrade to Wordpress 2.6 messed up my database. All previous comments were lost. Sorry)