How Not To Comment: Don’t Be That Guy

How Not To Comment

I’m a fan of Akismet, even though it occasionally eats up valuable comments from great visitors. To make sure those are not lost forever, I check the Spam folder almost daily.

Last week, I found about 60 (yes, sixty) comments from the same guy (or guyette) with the same slightly spun inane comment. Obviously threw some tool at Moonpreneur, “cleverly” swapping IP addresses, and hitting me up with a new comment every 5 minutes or so. Obviously some poor chap who had been sold the latest in push button software …

Just for fun, I wanted to share my spam folder inhabitants.

The Generalist: this is the typical “Nice post! I always wanted to know about this topic.” Would I really be so naive that I would think the comment is referring to the topic of my post?

The Spin Master: this clever soul throws a bunch words together, which, try as I might, I can’t make sense out of. For example, “There may be noticeably a bundle to learn about this. I assume you made sure nice factors in options also.”

The Don’t-We-Know-Each-Other?: claiming that my blog was recommended by someone trustworthy, this commenter appeals to my vanity: “My brother suggested I might like this website. He was totally right. This post actually made my day.” Now, I would have believed it if there was just tiny hint of a reference to the actual day-making post.

The Flatterer: I’ve had to face this one with steely resolve against the onslaught of “You’re best!“, “I’ve been searching for this info a long time“, and the final, ultimate flattery, “You must take part in a contest for one of the best blogs on the web. I will suggest this website!”

The Borderline Spammer: this one could be a legit visitor, but plugs his/her website in such a shameless manner without the comment adding any value, that it’s hard to have it occupy the same page as Moonpreneur’s true contributors.

The Undisguised Spammer: this guy doesn’t even bother to dress up his comment. He plunks down a dense paragraph about his particular brand of snake oil, with every other word hyperlinked to his landing page. Ugh. Sometimes, he won’t even bother with the paragraph, opting instead to just have a series of links separated by a space. Double ugh.

We all know commenting etiquette. Make sure it’s relevant, avoid unnecessary linking, feel free to respectfully disagree, but please play nice.

I’m blessed with a vibrant community of contributors on Moonpreneur – some wonderful, useful discussions follow many of the posts – thank you!!!

Please accept my apology if your comment got trapped by Akismet and there was a bit of a delay between when you posted the comment, and when it appeared.

I’d love to hear about your particular pet-peeves with commenters. C’mon, you know you have them, and you’re dying to spill!