The comment in question wasn't the sort of thing that I would have suspected as spam at first glance. It contained some information about a publishing company none of us had heard of and described their newsletters. At the end there was information for readers to subscribe. There wasn't one reference to an erectile dysfunction pill or an interest-free mortgage.
The author of the blog e-mailed the group to say that readers sometimes write partially self-promotional comments. She said she didn't object if they are relevant. But she questioned where the line is.
The writer's e-mail made me think. Should we be discouraging readers from engaging in dialogue with us for fear that their comments may be construed as too promotional or self serving? Here's how I responded:
"I am torn. If it were the sort of thing where someone had posted a thoughtful and authentic comment (even if it were self-promotional) and suggested at the end to subscribe to their newsletter I wouldn't think twice about taking their post down."
As soon as I pressed send, as I do with so many e-mails, I re-thought what I had written. Would I really have not given a thought to leaving the comment on the blog? I have been reading a great book lately called Clear Blogging: How People Are Changing the World and How You Can Join Them. The author, Bob Walsh, talks about what he calls The dirty little secret in his blog Clear Blogging. The dirty secret is basically the fact that spam makes up 94% of the comments submitted in the bloggosphere.
While a piece of promotional copy submitted as a comment on our site alone would not have been a problem, given the wording of the comment (and the fact that I have become so engrossed in Walsh's book that I haven't turned on my TV since Sunday) I decided to heed the expert's advice:
"React to spam on your blog like you would react to finding a cockroach on your arm - kill it instantly. Yes, I know stopping your work to kill spam crawling up your blog is terrible for productivity. I can't prove it, but I'm convinced that spammers track which blogs kill their spam comments and trackbacks and how quickly. If you don't react fast, they swarm you faster than you can say rabid rat attack."
I don't want to attack potential readers, but I certainly don't want our sites to be attacked by spam.
1 comment:
Thanks for the kind words and high praise ("I have become so engrossed in Walsh's book that I haven't turned on my TV since Sunday"!) -
It is a fine line between self-promotion in the common interest and spam. As someone who comments, I'd say the test is how relevant is what I have to offer/sell/promote to the post.
As a blogger, unless I clearly see the comment is relevant AND not generated by an evil program trying to get by my spam filter, that comment dies.
Regards,
Bob
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