Sometimes it is very tough to "market" our website via SU. Even if we have decent content, it might still be classified as spam. For example, I came across one SU profile which has a motto "Exposing the users ruining StumbleUpon for the rest of us." A portion of his blog... One of the pages he thumbed-down is a pretty decent article which talks about an exploit found in WordPress. The article (not mine): http://www.untechy.com/huge-hacking-exploit-in-wordpress-233 In my opinion, this is not spam. (yes it does have some AdSense but the content is useful) Yet this spam-buster classified the article as spam, and his comment said "stumble exchange spam". This is very wrong. If an article adds value to the community, has useful information, but is "marketed" using a stumble exchange... Does it make the article spam? No. The content is still useful, no matter how it is being "marketed". Sometimes people perceive every page that participates in stumble exchange as spam. This might be the case, but not always. I would be interested to hear your opinions
If it's marketed via exchanges instead of legitimate stumbles, yes, it's spam. If I sent out a commercial, but "useful," unsolicited email, that would still be spam legally. This really isn't different.
I think he just likes wordpress and doesnt like any1 finding finding glitches and flaws with it....and maybe he's not referring to spam here but content he doesnt lyk..ignore him
So... In this stumble case, there are two different perceptions to spam: 1. The content itself 2. HOW the content is marketed Any other thoughts?
There are several StumbleUpon users who track various stumble exchanges and thumb down all urls involved regardless of content. There are two reasons why they do it: it punishes those pesky spammers who are ruining SU, and it gains them a lot of fans. SU users like to befriend people who they believe are helping SU. I've seen some of these "exchange trackers" who have more fans than they have stumbles.
I think it's more then just that case. A FANTASTIC page that is powered by stumble exchanges is spam, as it goes beyond the standard procedure of Stumbleupon. Had the same page been found through a natural means and then gone viral would have been the natural process of how SU is supposed to be used. However, I'd really rather see fantastic content pushed over crappy content... as with crappy content no one wins but the looser that created that page, and maybe the loosers that exchanged with him/her. SU is nofollow and that has stopped many from exploiting the social and viral nature of the system. However, that system can still be exploited by those that disregard that nofollow tag that are seeking traffic. And anyone exploiting the system is a spammer, even if not by convensional means.
True, I can see the utopia of "the natural process". Ideally our page should be discovered by another (unknown) person and then get natural stumbles. But what to do when our site/blog has just launched, when we have no userbase? Does the old adage "Build it and they will come" still apply on the Web? (Or maybe "Stumble it and they will come".....) Btw, did you know that StumbleUpon provides a way for advertisers to insert their own pages to be shown to stumblers? This is by no means "natural process" (it is similar to paid stumbles). Does not seem very ideal to me. Is this spam? Or not spam, because it is "official" ?
The costs for that would likely keep such numbers down. Adwords is likely cheaper and much more effective. And I would actually consider that spam as well... but at least that is "official" spam
How is advertising spam in your eyes? (Just curious as to the reasoning.) The way I see it is this: it's not unsolicited, b/c when you use a free service, you go in knowing they have a right to monetize their work to keep the service free for you. Once you agree to their terms, you really can't call it spam imo.
Sometimes even advertising could be considered as spam. It all depends on how you go about advertising and what methods you use in order to reach your target audience. Suppose you are home lying on the couch watching your favorite TV series and all of a sudden a paid commercial interrupts the show and you get to see 15 mins of unsolicited commercials. Don't know about you guys but I call this pure 100% spam. Why? Cause I got interrupted in order to see some sort of commercial about a beauty cream or something that i didn't want to watch in the first place. In that case I loose these 15 mins. The prize? I gave my attention for these 15 mins to the guys advertising this. I paid with my attention, that is the prize. If the case was that I had given my permission to receive, read or watch a commercial advertising a particular product the case would be totally different. Now this is not spam. I have given my permission in this case to the advertisers to send me materials or to talk to me about a particular topic. So these two cases, IMHO, define the two advertising cases these days. The advertising based on interrupting people and the other one based on given permission by the target audience. That's the way I see things. This is my take on spam and advertising in general. I hope to hear other people's opinion on this. Have the best of your day!
Getting pages through stumble that have been inserted by paying someone is akin to junk emails. Yes, you want emails, but you certainly did not ask for such ads. I'm not saying that ads are spam, I'm saying that sneaking them in without notice is. When I click the stumble button I want pages that other stumblers have submitted, not sites/pages that had to pay because they were not worthy of going through the natural process. Yes, they have the right to monetize their work, but such ads should be noted as "paid" or shown to be sponsors of some type... not just placed in the queue.
I agree that sponsored ads should be labeled as such, but at the same time, it's not about whether you want them there... they're not unsolicited b/c you would have had to agree to accept them by accepting the terms of use (I can't imagine that wouldn't be true at least, although I'm not looking directly at it). So from an ethical standpoint, I think they should be transparent. But they don't have to be once you've agreed to have them worked into regular results - I just don't think something can be classified as "spam" if you've agreed to receive it in some way. But hey... we're all entitled to our opinions.
Point taken... I still think they are spam, though I guess not in to the letter of the common definition. I'd bet there is another Monty Python word that applies to such advertising
well goin to forums n saying come visit my site...or goin to a blog and commenting check out my blog..thats what i call spam..and of course the mails.
Those are all valid points. jhmattern, technically you are correct because when we agreed to their TOS we gave our permission for the advertisement. But philosophically, such "sponsored pages" were not going through the natural selection process. In a way this is spam, although technically it is not spam due to our agreement to the TOS. Same results (unnatural pages showing in stumbles), but with different methods to achieve them: 1. Pay SU to show our stuff 2. Do stumble exchanges One might argue SU has every right to do so, but to end-users, what's the difference? (unless the sponsored pages were clearly marked as such) There are many interesting viewpoints to this and I am sure everyone's opinion would be different Now, back to the topic of stumble spam definition, 1. The content itself 2. HOW the content is marketed I tend to agree with (1) because with option (2) anybody can make your page classified as spam. Let's say you have created a wonderful page and you are waiting for the natural process to happen (other people discovering your page and giving it thumbs-up). But before that happens, your competitor submits your page to stumble exchange groups. Guess what? Your wonderful page instantly becomes spam, regardless of its content. Easy as pie. If we judge a page based on its content alone, the above scenario could not happen...
Re-read her posts (and mine) and you'll see that it is a specific type of advertising she was talking about and not random forum posts or blog comments. In this specific case, she is talking about advertisements in the form of seeded stumble pages through Stumblerupon's ad network.
Ok, this is really weird. Believe it or not, I am unTECHy. I own unTECHy.com and I'm the unTECHy blogger known as Keith. I had no Idea my site was marked as Spam. What's even weirder is seeing my own website while browsing various posts on DP. Strange. What does this mean to my SU traffic? How do I change it? Any Ideas would be great. I do not knowingly spam my website. I do not copy other peoples' posts and past them onto mine. Unless noted, my posts are 100% written by me.
Keith, what a coincidence! Well, anyone can submit any page to SU or SU exchange groups, so in the end it is your content that really matters...
In any community of folks, there are always a fair number of whiners, complainers, and those with a "poor me" attitude. Those individuals relish in trashing the good efforts of others.