O.K., I'm stumped again. There's a comment on Eric's article John Quick: Boy Genius which is either genuine or one of the most intelligent robot comments I've seen. Three things make me suspicious:
- The author gives his name, first name only, as the same name as the author of the article, which is at least a remarkable coincidence.
- Although the post is articulate and somewhat relevant, I am not certain that Eric's article has anything to do with "accelerated learning ideas" despite being about a "boy genius". I think a human reader would have recognized that this was not to do with that. On the other hand, I could be mistaken--this could be exactly what he means, stories related to genius.
- The link, though, causes me doubt. It's for information for speed reading courses, which is something to do with accelerated learning and nothing to do with what Eric wrote. It makes me think that this was a bot--an extremely well designed bot--Spamming the articles to get that link in place. I hesitate, though, because my stuff is connected to a commercial link, promoting my books and game materials, and that in itself should not be damning even if the link isn't totally relevant to Gaming Outpost's purpose.
On the one hand, I try to err on the side of caution, and do not wish to delete anyone who is genuinely interested in participating in discussion here. On the other hand, he suggests he'll be back next month to discuss this further, and may be counting on the possibility that in a month we'll have forgotten his link is buried here.
I was tempted to unapprove the post, but I'm not certain whether he would be able to see it if he returned, or if I would ever get back to delete it the rest of the way.
It's your call, of course.
--M. J. Young
