Aaron--
Someone posted a comment this morning (2/20/8) on the article World a Week: Axe Age Above. I've disapproved it but not marked it Spam because I wanted to check it with you. He writes under the name Bull Dagger, and it appears to be an effort to get a link to a site that sells weapons made of Damascus Steel. The comment itself is not entirely out of character for Gaming Outpost, but has nothing to do with the article to which it is attached.
I wasn't sure whether to delete it; after all, we do talk about stuff like the quality of weapon materials, and I don't know that this is not a new member. However, I don't see an e-mail address so I can't ask him who he is.
Thoughts?
--M. J. Young
It's spam. You can tell since it repeats the commenter's name in bold at the start of the message. My personal site has been getting a ton of those.
I've taken care of it. Thanks for pointing it out.
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
MJ-
It's more than likely spam, as well. The give away is the bold first line that repeats the poster's name. Pretty much any comment you see with that pattern is spam. I don't know why spammers have adopted that, but there are thousands of spam in GO's quarantine that are similar.
And it had fooled me, but not the professional spam killah' Aaron...