Spammers, this is NOT the way to win my attention.
I think we can all agree that spammers are, well, annoying–like telemarketers used to be. They clutter up your comments and email with links for products and sites that usually have nothing to do with what you’re blogging about.
To be fair, some spammers at least try. They leave a legitimate comment about something you’ve posted–it’s just that their website link goes back to some site trying to sell you something. They’re at least trying to blend in, contribute, and aren’t being obnoxious about it. Spammers like that are okay in my book, like any poor wage slave just trying to make a living. Would I rather they weren’t passing out business cards in my living room, yes, but as long as they’re polite and don’t stand on the furniture, we can get along.
But, how about this comment I got recently? (Misspellings and grammar left untouched. The only thing I removed was the hyperlink because I’m not giving this person free advertising.)
Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again. Sick of getting low amounts of useless traffic for your website? Well i wish to let you know about a fresh underground tactic that produces me personally $900 on a daily basis on 100% AUTOPILOT. I could be here all day and going into detail but why dont you just check their site out? There is a excellent video that explains everything. So if your serious about producing quick hard cash this is the website for you _______.
Oh, where do I start?
It’s rude. First, while I don’t remember seeing the person’s name in my spam filters before, it’s possible their comment got past the Akismet wall and that I saw it in the spam filter and thought, “Yep, that’s spam,” and deleted it myself. But, that’s my job. I certainly hold the right to delete any comments I wish from my own site–especially if they’re spam.
What does this person think they’re gaining by outright scolding me for deleting their comment?
Oy, the nerve!
Which, of course, is the number one rule for selling anything, isn’t it? DON’T BE RUDE. You never know who might be a potential customer. You never know who has power and who does not. There are countless fairy tales with fairy godmothers in disguise, testing good intentions.
But more than that, a comment like this is essentially hijacking my site for their own purposes (and doing it nastily).
If there’s anything I hate more than spam, it’s RUDE spam. No way on earth I’m letting this person’s comment through now, ever.
So, who is this person hurting? Me? I don’t think so. They’re only hurting themselves by burning bridges. Am I likely to ever have let one of their badly punctuated comments slide? Probably not, but I’m happy to have well-intentioned conversations. If they had tried to fit in or been a little nicer, there wouldn’t have been an issue.
Why … I mean, seriously, WHY … do you suppose they thought a comment like that was a GOOD idea? “Why have you taken out my post? It was very helpful information and i assure atleast one person found it helpful unlike the rest of the comments on this site. I’ll post it again….” They insulted me for my management, and insulted all of you, my readers, for allegedly leaving unhelpful comments.
Sheesh.
I wish I really were a fairy godmother in disguise so I could smite them with some nice, genteel curse like warts or bunions or something really inconvenient like chronic writer’s block.
Okay, thanks for letting me vent! Please come and leave REAL comments and share your opinions!
Oh wow. That was bizarre. It’s odd that they’ve posted a comment like this, but it was already odd that they bothered to come back to see if the comment was still there.
Sometimes, if it is a comment that at least have some thoughts put in but leads to a very spammy site, I just keep the comment and delete their link.
I don’t honestly know if they were “coming back” to check on the other comment, or if they simply leave random comments saying “Why did you delete it.”
The fact remains, though, that I can’t wrap my head around what on earth they were thinking. What kind of marketing technique IS that?
This is definitely an automated spam comment as I’ve seen it on numerous WordPress websites I manage. Don’t worry about it they are not talking about you directly but spam tons of websites with the exact same verbage. Either way they are getting clever and make you do a double take before clicking “Mark as Spam”.