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Okay--I am really irritated--"pending" accounts allowed to spam bad reviews?
Posted by melindaville • 8/22/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: death to spammers, pending accounts, saturday's rant, spammer reviewers
I just got two new reviews. Both "reviewers" gave my blog one star (which has actually never happened before--out of 36 reviews, the lowest anyone has given my blog is 4 stars).
Now, I don't mind an honest critique--and even lower stars as long as a person can give me an idea of why he/she thinks my blog is that poor.
But this is what these two BOZOS left for reviews (btw--I think they are one and the same).
waqas
i m looking for clk exchange peoples
my ID is xxxxxxx (I removed their email addresses because I am nice).
bye
kazuya mishima
my id is xxxxxxx
looking for click Exchange
thnx in advance bye
When I went to go look at who they were and to leave them a message asking why they did this to my review--I can't leave them a shout because both are "pending approval" yet--they are allowed to review my blog? And I cannot even communicate with them?
I did send a shout to jabetee asking him to please remove the reviews, since this person so obviously didn't even visit my blog. But I wonder why people who are 'pending' are allowed to give reviews? Particularly because it is impossible to even communicate with the said spammers under their 'pending status.'
Thanks for letting me rant!
User Comments
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Annoying indeed! I don't think it should be allowed-
I agree. Truly irritating.
It seems like spammers are taking over here sometimes. I think that the spamming would be partially alleviated if people weren't allowed to add you as friends without your permission. This gives unscrupulous spammers full license to irritate with spam! -
agreed!
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Sorry Melinda. I'm pissed off for you. You tell me who, where, and when and I'll break a few kneecaps for you.
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Thanks Rory--I knew I could count on you!
Folks--I have my own personal goon.
Neener, neener, neener!
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HULK SMASH!!!!!!!!
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Click the Report This Comment link in both bogus reviews and Admin will remove them.
They will also have a heads up as to which "guest" is doing such things. Every one of these "bogus blog rating and reviews I have reported not only on my own blogs, but also left on other member's blog rating and review pages have been deleted following reporting them to Admin.
P.S. I just reported both of them as well.-
I did do that already. I just wonder why 'pending accounts' are given the power to review blogs but you cannot even post a shout to them?
That makes zero sense to me. -
See my earlier thread on this same topic
www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/guests-and-members
Also on the bogus ratings and reviews you received you can click www.blogcatalog.com/user/viccrack/reviews and see how many others were spammed. -
Thanks for the 411, TT--as usual, you are a wealth of timely information!
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BTW I reported the other bogus ratings and reviews by vicrack as well.
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Thank you!
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that is crazy! How can non-approved spam-blobs leave comments?!?-
Exactly. I am agit8ed, agit8er!
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That is somewhat annoying.-
You're right. It's really only somewhat annoying. But it's annoying for a lovely sunny Saturday!
It could be much worse. I could have been hit by lightening. That would be much more annoying.
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I know this is not a popular POV, but I don't think a person should be allowed to participate in the forums, leave reviews, or anything other than LOOK unless they are members, and membership should be limited to people who have blogs.
That way anybody can look over the catalog, but only bloggers are IN the catalog.
I think that would cut down on spam...and trolls, too.-
I really do agree with that, sweetviolet. I think that would be a progressive policy, actually.
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Couldn't agree with you more. All they'd be allowed to do is lurk until they were fully approved.
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I would have to agree with this as well. Sorry to hear the troubles Melinda. -
Thanks TC. You guys are making me feel better! And it did feel good to rant about it!
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TonyB responded to me in my guests and members thread when this same subject previously arose. At that time a woman, who was a member spammed 300 members with identical bogus blog ratings and reviews, which in essence, were aimed at advertising and promoting her own site. Below is what he said.
[quote]"Great questions. Guest accounts have been on BC for over a year now. They are a way to get blog readers and people to the site and engage them more with blog content. We have plans to make the Guest account a more valuable service for blog readers with different tools for them to be able to find and save and read blog content that matches their interests. You do not need a guest account to review a blog. You can review one without having any account. You simply need to verify your email address.
The women who reviewed the 300 blogs was in fact a blogger. So it's clear that the issue isn't one about bloggers and non bloggers but about certain people giving fake reviews. The question seems to be more one of how do you identify them and get rid of them. The fact that you can report your reviews is one way.
Regarding the blogger forum, you may notice that non bloggers cannot participate in the discussions, ie. the forum part of this site . Non blogger readers however make up the majority of traffic that blogcatalog receives and sends to blogs. So if we were to make it a requirement that only bloggers could read and see what's going on, most of the traffic to blogs from BlogCatalog would disappear.
Just like you find "bad seeds" who are bloggers in this community. That is people who either troll, or spam, or both, you find "bad seed" readers and guests. The question isn't how you eliminate all bloggers or readers because of a few bad ones but what can we as a community do to more quickly and effectively eliminate people who spam." [/quote]
Here's the link to his response www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/guests-and-members#comment_926993-
I understand the purpose of the guest thread--but I don't think they should be able to post reviews of members untl they are approved, full-fledge members.
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I agree that pending status should mean you are pending for everything BC related. Also, those spammers that "reviewed" your blog Melinda are not smart at all. How can they expect you to go to their blogs if they gave you such a bad review? Dumb indeed!-
Really stupid, I agree. I don't know that they were even smart enough to understand the star rating system though. Or perhaps it is Joedumphy coming to haunt me
AS you would say deray, jajajajajajajajajajaj!
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@Melinda
If they're susceptible to insulting limericks, I'd be delighted to hit them to the point that what pitiful excuses for brains which they possess leak out of their ears.-
I doubt they are astute enought to get any limerick, insulting or otherwise!
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@Melinda
Fine then, outright insults might do the trick:
They're so stupid that not only do they not have two brain cells to rub together, the one brain cell they share between them obviously gave over its job to colonic bacteria. -
Ha!
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@Melinda
They're so dumb that the League of Village Idiots has threatened to sue anyone for defamation of character if they dare refer to these spammers as being in the same profession as they. -
You are a wealth of great insults! I need to file these away somewhere handy . . .
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@Melinda
Remember, you've likely seen bits of litter floating in a street gutter after a hurricane hit and the sewers burst, that were more intelligent, classier and more welcome than those spammers. -
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
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it seems like once a spam review is reported and confirmed, the rating should be amended. Is that impossible??
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I think that's what will happen--according to timethief, when this has happened to her, they removed the reviews and ratings.
I hope they do that for mine too--as it seriously has skewed my stats! -
*checks his rankings*
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I'm honestly not sure what membership has to do with anything. What happened here obviously sucks, but there's a quick and easy means of taking care of it available. People who have blogs and are members spam all the time, and the fact that someone is a blogger doesn't make him or her any more qualified to give a pertinent review of a blog than someone who reads blogs but doesn't personally maintain one.-
Well, I don't think people who aren't approved members should have the type of authority to review other people's blogs.
At least not until they are approved. That just opens the door for this type of thing, doesn't it?
Why would someone who is not a member be allowed to do something as serious as a review? -
Active membership would give Melinda the opportunity to contact the reviewer to discuss the review, as she mentioned in above.
Also, we have had an influx of troll-type postings recently, some of it pretty nasty...sufficiently so that the entire threads were removed. When these were active, I clicked on the person's name to go to their profile and in each case, there was nothing there except the "pending" notice.
As TT has opined on at least one occasion, people who are not members of the community have nothing to lose by their nasty hit-and-run comments or by posting spam. I think that should change. Spammers, trolls, and other undesirables right now do not have to register a blog in order to have access to participation in the forums and groups or leaving shouts and reviews. So, if they are kicked out for behaving badly, it is easy for them to join again under another pseudonym and resume their undesirable behaviour. If, however, they were required to register a blog with their membership and participation was not permitted until a blog was approved, it would be more difficult for them to come back and re-offend, once kicked out (they'd have to come up with a whole new blog and have it approved before they could post again).
So, right there, I can see a reduction in spamming, trolling, and other undesirable behaviour with no negative impact on the rest of us.
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Do you want to see baby pictures?
babypictures.com
lol
Just responding to your mention of spammers taking over.-
Ain't it the truth, Rozie!
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Um... that really sucks.
As a writer you spend hours and maybe days to come up with something thoughtful and good and it really hurts when a few spammers can just register and give you a bad rating... and they probably didn't even read anything.
I think this is just wrong if a few spammers can or are allowed to question the integrity of the post or the whole blog.-
Oh, they didn't visit my blog at all. I have a widget that tells me which BC members do. These "reviewers" just wanted to drop their own spammy link.
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@melinda
Of course this reveals the mind of the spammer: they put in a poorly spelled, totally unconvincing advertisement and lower your blog's ratings, and yet expect you to honour them with a click or link exchange.
However, spamming must work somehow, otherwise there would be no financial incentive for it to take place. -
That's really infuriating. I'm sure admin. will remove it. But what a stupid and irresponsible thing for someone to do. That person needs to be contacted immediately and given a warning. -
Right--these two (I think it is really one person with multiple accounts) are certainly not smart.
But then perhaps they are like people who create viruses--or hackers? They just want to try to create havoc and misery.
Lovely people (NOT!). -
Thanks NP--I agree, totally irresponsible.
Warned at the very least--and perhaps even banned since this is just a simply destructive thing to do.
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Spammers assaulted Melinda's blog
And we're stunned and left frankly agog
That they could be so dumb
And such depths they could plumb
They're worse than a toilet clog.
Spammers, hear the voice of us all:
One day, you will be made to fall
We're sick of your crap
And your awful sales rap
By lions, you should be mauled.
Or strung up by nipple clips
Which hopefully will partially slip
And you'll be in need
As you slowly bleed
But only get the end of a whip.
Or perhaps we ought to set you on fire
And as the flames reach ever higher
We'll coat you in spam
And metal pokers ram
In a place that you don't desire.
Overall, however, just go away
Leave the good people of BC to play
Your departure can't be too soon
Go to the dark side of the moon
And when you reach there, just stay!-
Excellent, GC! You are so talented at that!
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I love your poem. It made me laugh.
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An update on this. Thanks to the admins at BC, the spammy reviews and poor ratings were removed!
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Yay! Good news. I knew that Admin would come through for you as they have always done for me, when I have reported bogus blog ratings and reviews.
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Yay! Good news, Melinda. Figured they would.
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I personally don't believe in the "review blog" concept, don't care, and ignore everything related to that .. however, I always have 2 cents to offer!
Notwithstanding the spammy/exchange type of review comments like above which shouldn't be allowed .. I do think that newbies that are "pending review" should be able to review, just as much as "guests" who have no blogs to be pending review should be able to review blogs and participate in this forum and in the group section.
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