What exactly are the "good efforts" you're talking about? Those playing by the rules, or those gaming the system?
Submitting junk content to SU cannot be considered "good efforts". Those are "evil efforts". But let's say the content is wonderful and adds value to the community, but is submitted using stumble exchanges. Does this "way of promotion" make the page spam? If this is the case, it is possible for me to submit your wonderful page to stumble exchange groups, and your page will be treated as spam regardless of the content.
No, it makes the method spam. Webmasters should be more critical then their own work, then the works of others. That is not generally the case however, and many believe their own work IS worth reading by EVERYONE. So "wonderful" in this case is likely rather subjective Besides, if you are using SU as a "way of promotion" you* are likely a spammer on some level regardless of how wonderful the content is. (*'you' used subjectively)
People who pay SU to have their pages shown are using SU as a "way of promotion". Do you think those people are likely spammers on some level?
It's a "way of promotion" that doesn't try to game a system or get around the terms of use though - and it's a "way of promotion" that SU users have agreed to accept in their results when they signed up for the service - big difference.
Agreed, big difference in that "user agreement" aspect. But when we talk about spam, we are also talking about how the content is perceived by users. Users see no difference between pages coming from paid inclusion and stumble exchanges.
Users can't technically perceive something as "spam" if they've agreed to receive it... spam, by its very nature, has to be completely unsolicited. Simply not liking something doesn't equate to what spam actually is... especially since they not only signed up and agreed to receive it, but they have the option to stop receiving it any time they want by not using the service. According to what you're saying, every advertisement would be spam (which we all know isn't the case), just because users don't necessarily want to see them.
Ok, if we want to talk technical... Technically, from the users' point of view, there is no spam at all. Why? Because users have agreed to be shown a page when they click the "Stumble" button on the toolbar. The page could be the result of natural selection or paid inclusion or stumble exchanges or anything. The page is not unsolicited at all -- in fact, users ask for it! (by clicking the Stumble button) I said what? I never said anything about users wanting or not wanting to see the content... I did say something about user perception though. With advertisement users have a way to differentiate between "content" and "ads". With SU, users have no way to differentiate between "paid inclusion" and "pages resulting from stumble exchanges". As long as the content is useful for them, they will be happy, no?
What you said in regards to perception was my point - as in certain pages being not what they want to see (based on how it's getting there). By that assumption, pretty much all advertising would be spam. What you're missing is that the users' point of view has no relevance whatsoever in whether or not something is actually spam on the service. They're not the ones being spammed. That's completely for the service to determine - not end users. They're agreeing to receive only pages that come in from people using SU according to the same terms they agreed to. You're right in that they likely won't know the difference. The point is that SU does.
We clearly have a different perception here. Regarding spam, I am thinking something user-oriented, and you are thinking service-oriented. My thinking about the zero-spam thing hasn't changed though. Users have agreed to be shown a page that relates to their interests when they click the "Stumble" button. That's the keyword: "relates to their interest"; and this is the whole point of stumbling: "Show me a page related to my interests when I click the Stumble button." But if you think there is no relation between spam and users, well... I have to agree that in this context stumble exchanges are spamming the service -- but not spamming the users. Thanks for the eye-opening discussion
meetgs: I see you have StumbleUdon in your sig. Wouldn't this be a stumble exchange? I remember signing up with them a few months back. Couldn't figure it out so I never did anything with it. Could this be considered spam?
Actually, this thread is not to discuss my signature or StumbleUdon. But to answer your question, yes StumbleUdon is a media for stumble exchanges. Could this be considered spam? It depends on your opinion, of course. Do you consider "the activities" of exchanging stumbles as spam? Or do you consider spam based on the "content" of a page, regardless of how it is "promoted" ? Personally I go with the latter, but some other people go with the first.