Spammers are getting more and more sophisticated in their methods. Thanks to Akismet on WordPress and Blogger’s new spam filters, the days of gibberish-filled comments with 50 links to different spam sites are over. So the spammers have had to get creative and try to slip one over on us bloggers.
These days, the common technique is to leave some flattering yet generic comment like “Hey, this is a great post. I bookmarked it, and I’m going to tell all my friends. You rock!”The spammer has also included the URL to the site they’re pimping in the hopes that this seemingly innocuous comment will slip through our radar. What they really hope is that the search engines will follow the URL to their site, and they get a little “Google juice” out of it.
This is a common SEO technique, so I understand the reason for it. But it’s really kind of slimy, especially because some new bloggers don’t catch on right away, and they’ll publish these comments, and will sometimes even respond to them.
The latest technique is to actually read the blog post, leave a semi-generic message about that particular topic, again with the URL, in the hopes that this will get through.
“Hey, this is a great post about ghost blogging and I bookmarked it so I can come back again later. I’m going to tell all my friends about it. You rock!”
Here’s my ethical dilemma: Can I, as the blog owner, delete their URL, and then publish the comment? I’m “defanging the serpent,” as it were, and not allowing the spammer to get what they want, but I still get the benefit of a semi-generic praise-ish, if falsely made, comment.
The Pro of Editing Comments
I can argue that many of these spammers are only trying to deceive people into buying their stuff (usually porn, pills, or counterfeit watches), and as such, are not very moral people. I’m not doing any more harm by editing these comments than I am by deleting them. I’m removing the offending URL, and blocking their attempts to direct people to their nefarious websites.
The Con of Editing Comments
This could be a slippery slope. If I edit a spam comment today, what’s to stop me from editing a regular comment for spelling and grammatical errors tomorrow? And then deleting a negative comment the next day? From there, it’s a short step to editing a negative comment into a positive one.
The Question: Can I Edit Spam Comments?
So, my question is, assuming I don’t slide down the slippery slope, can I remove the URLs and publish the comments? If I promise not to cross that line, and never, ever edit a real comment for any reason whatsoever, can I tweak the spam comments and remove the one thing that makes them spam.
What do you think? Do you edit or just delete? Is it dangerous to edit these spammy comments, or perfectly acceptable?
Photo credit: Cookipediachef (Flickr)
, says that one of the best ways to build readership for your blog is by commenting on other people’s blogs.
No, It’s NOT Okay To Edit Spam Comments
Last week, I asked the question whether it was ethical to edit spam comments to get rid of the URL that is being used to generate some SEO juice for the spammers, but leave the semi-spammy comment in place.
Now THAT'S a lot of Spam
I expected some vigorous debate and discussion with people on both sides of the argument. But with a couple of exceptions, everyone said, “No, this is not okay!”
(Before I go on, let me say, we got some wonderful feedback and comments, so I want to thank everyone who took the time to read the post and respond.)
I was actually surprised by the near unanimous stance everyone took. I figured it would be more of an even split on the issue, with a large number of people saying they thought it was okay to beat the spammers by using their own energies against them, sort of a blogging jiu jitsu. But, nearly everyone was of the opinion that we, as real bloggers, should be above this, and should not resort to the same practices as the spammers.
Fellow blogger Brian Shelton summed it up best.
That was the majority opinion, and made the most sense. And it seemed to cover most types of blog comments, although Daniel Clark of GeekDadsWeekly.com made an interesting point:
(Touché, Daniel.)
The Other Side of the Debate: Editing for Spelling & Punctuation
However, one person, an ethics blogger, said on his blog that he did not think it was inappropriate to edit typos and grammar errors in another person’s comment. But I disagree. That’s a line I won’t cross. It’s not up to me to fix someone’s spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors. They’re their errors, not mine, and they should not be fixed because I have to have everything perfect.
A post and its comments are a historical record, to show what people were thinking and saying at that time. If they make a mistake, it’s not my place to adjust the historical record because I have a weird fixation on spelling and grammar.
(And no, I don’t think spammers deserve to be a part of the historical record.)
That’s why most bloggers will fix an error in information by
striking outthe error and writing the correct information next to it. They will also put an Update: note at the bottom of the post, so people can see that the information has been updated and corrected. (Note: this doesn’t extend to typos and misspellings. I think we can fix those without telling everyone “I fixed a typo.”)Photo credit: Freezelight (Flickr)