Comment Cleaning
Whew! Just got done cleaning out all the comment spam. I let it go on for WAY too long. While doing it though, I noticed two things about the comments. One, some of them were quite clever and almost tricked me out of deleting them. Two, one of the them was from Citibank! I get that scummy pharma dealers and online casinos have to resort to these insidious tactics, but Citibank!? Obviously a more stringent set of rules for allowing posts on Banapana is going to have to follow. I think I will likely limit it to folks who use Typekey — that seems like a good way to keep people honest.
But one thing that bothers me about this mass spamming kind of thing is that I’ve in the past made an effort to mention my blog on another blog and included the URL in the hopes it would get some traffic. I suppose trackbacks are largely the same thing. And I guess I’m not sure if I feel like I would delete comments that were commercial in intent. If I had, for instance, just completed an entry about personal finances and Citibank wanted to jump in and explain how their services could help and provide links, I don’t think I would mind. The obvious objection is “they should pay for that privilege.” But let me be clear, I’m not talking about a generic comment posted on numerous blogs. What I mean, is that if someone at Citibank took the time to make their comment directly related to my entry, I would likely leave it.
It makes me wonder if their isn’t a viable advertising business in sending people around commenting on blogs on behalf of businesses — a less massive and more personalized version of AdWords.