Regarding recent discussions here in ATA on "blog spam."

[TheWraith]

There are a few aspects that weren't touched on in the two recent questions about people spamming for their blog. The question taken up in those threads appears to be the acceptability of someone posting links to their blog, but I don't think that that was ever really being questioned or complained about.

One: The person whose behavior created the issue is not a regular DUer: they do not participate in ANY discussions, EVER, other than the threads they start to flog their blog. Even then, their posts are often "drivebys," with no participation in the discussion beyond the OP. They never posted here beforehand, or since, on anything other than promoting their website.

Two: their posts are deliberately inflammatory, often mixing in subtle (and not so subtle) insults to various groups. Referring to Detroiters as "those people," asserting that most American gun owners are criminals and wannabe murderers, repeatedly calling Detroit a "cesspool" even after having a Detroiter point out to him that that was rude and obnoxious, etcetera. There's no question from the person's attitude that it's his intent to draw anger.

Three, and most important: his blog runs on commercial advertising. Combined with the above two, it creates the impression for most of us of not being just someone posting links to their thoughts for discussion, but someone who is here exclusively to leech off of DU's traffic and try to stimulate flamewars for personal profit.

I wanted to make sure that this point was clear, and wasn't lost in the issue of whether or not it was okay to post blog links, which I'm sure everone understands is fine.

[Skinner]

1. How many of these blog spam threads do I have to respond to?

One: My impression is that most of the people in the Guns forum rarely leave the Guns forum.

Two: If a post is inflammatory, feel free to alert so the moderators can deal with it.

Three: There is no shame in running commercial advertising. DU runs on commercial advertising.

Four: This "problem" can be dealt with so easily. Just use the ignore feature and you'll never see his "blog spam" again.