Blog spamming

[aikoaiko]

Does DU have a position on blog spamming? Are people allowed to make controversial posts and then blind link back to personal, non-DU blogs?

I would think this behavior should be discouraged. These folks may or may not have a sincere supportive interest in the Democratic Party or liberalism, and yet they are creating business revenue for themselves by abusing the DU forums and posting inflammatory posts.

I think their motives are transparent when they use blind links that are not labeled to an external blog. Blind linking in this context is just dishonest.

I should add that this is not about not liking or disagreeing with the posts. There are many with whom I disagree. Its that the blog spammers are being manipulative and dishonest about their links and their motives.

Perhaps, the simplest solution is to have people not blind link to personal blogs or label them appropriately so that people won't put money in the blogspammers' pockets.

If you need links to the offending posts, please IM me.

[Skinner]

1. It's not against the rules to link to another site.

And it's not against the rules to link to your own site. It's more discussion fodder for us.

If someone is being malicious or deceptive, then we would want to do something about it.

[aikoaiko]

2. Thank you for you consideration.

I have no problem with people linking to other sites or their own site with DU posts, per se. The issue is when people blind link to their own sites and other DU members don't have enough information to decide whether or not to click the link.

At minimal rule might that would solve the issue would be to require that people label the link as an external blog.

Respectfully,
aikoaiko

[Skinner]

3. Is it really so hard to click a link?

If you don't like where it goes, just click the little red "x" and close the window.

[aikoaiko]

4. No, its not that hard to click the link and then close it out.

I'm apparently not making my point clear. My question is more about blog spamming and not simply external links.

I think some DU members are posting in a manner to elicit people to unknowing click on links that increase their blog traffic (possibly for monetary reasons) at the expense of DU and DU members. In my mind it is troll-like and disruptive. Its called blog spamming and I am not fond it.

I think people can be (and should be) upfront about where their links go. And with that I'll bow out.

eta: from this point on, I will not accuse specific posts of being blogspam

[Skinner]

5. You might consider taking advantage of our ignore function.

Then the spam would all disappear.

[aikoaiko]

6. I probably should, but I have never "ignored" a DU member.

I see I have lost the argument that blog spamming is disruptive behavior in itself. I thought it would fall under the general rule against spamming.

I do appreciate the time you take to answer my questions.

[aikoaiko]

7. I accept Skinner's ruling on this issue.

From the other post on blog spamming.

Skinner ADMIN
Wed Aug-24-11 01:06 PM
1. Here's the best I can do for you.
- It's not against the rules to post links to one's own blog.
- I think in most cases it would be considered a rule violation to dismiss a post as spam, or to dismiss a person as spamming. So keep alerting, and the moderators will keep removing the posts.

Given Skinner's discussion of this issue in both threads, I think folks should not call out suspected blog spamming as blog spamming in the thread and, at most, one should hit the alert button and make the case that the suspected blog spamming threads are deceptive or other wise disruptive.