Something About Spam Comments

When people visit a website, sometimes they like to leave comments. Even when they are explicitly told not to. My post about Quantum Mechanics was commented on by many people, and these comments sparked some interesting conversations.

Unfortunately not all comments are good and left by people. Many comments are bad, and left by robots.

I. False Nice Comments

Spambots that leave comments, send emails, post status updates, etc, are like viruses. There are lots of them, and they are changing all the time. They are constantly evolving into more deadly, and/or more annoying creatures.

They have developed new methods, like this little trick. The spammer leaves really nice comments. Comments that are more likely to get approved than blocks of text or weight- loss testimonials. These false-nice comments lie in wait for people to scroll through the comments section and click links to their bad websites.

Eight have been selected to share. If you are reading this and say, “Hey, I left that comment and I’m not a spammer,” all I can say in return is this: Write like a normal human, and don’t include links to sketchy websites.

1. From:
cheap short prom dress
ilikethatdress.com
Submitted on 2014/02/08 at 10:27 pm

 "naturally like your website but you have to check the spelling on quite a few of your 
posts. Many of them are rife with spelling issues and I find it very troublesome to 
inform the reality on the other hand I will certainly come again again."

Whoever wrote this comment apparently needs perfect spelling in order to be informed about reality. That sounds like exactly the kind of thing a robot would need; a robot that knows its targets.

It is a spam comment that is a perfect trap for an aspiring writer. It looks like someone is offering legitimate, constrictive criticism. In reality they are just selling dresses.

2. From:
allergy season
allergies.adsuse.com/
Submitted on 2014/01/31 at 3:14 am

"What’s Taking place i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I have found It positively useful and it has aided me out loads. I am hoping to contribute & aid different customers  like its aided me. 
Great job."

This comment reads like it was composed by a person who just stepped out of a trans-dimensional portal into a bustling alien stock exchange. They learned a lot about cosmic finance, and want to bring other people through the portal to learn as well.

If I didn’t know this comment was spam I would think it was for someone else. There is nothing on this website that is useful for people who want customers.

3. From:
symptoms of acid reflux
acidreflux.adsboards.com
Submitted on 2014/01/30 at 1:06 pm

"This post presents clear idea in support of the new people of blogging, that truly how 
to do blogging and site-building."

Is throwing up poorly written sentences one of the symptoms of acid reflux?

4. From:
Torrent Downloader
youtube.com/watch?v=XVEW_ptbFA8
Submitted on 2014/01/29 at 10:46 pm

"Pretty nice post. I just stumbled upon your
blog and wanted to say that I have truly 
enjoyed
surfing around your blog posts. In any case I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope
you 
write again soon!"

This is a comment from a torrent downloader that links to a video that teaches people how to become torrent downloaders. It’s like a pirate walking up to you off of his ship, telling you he really likes your shoes, and then asking you to send people down to his school for pirates.

5. From:
gold value
gold.usabestads.com
Submitted on 2014/01/29 at 4:04 pm

"My family members always say that I am wasting my time here at web, however I know I am getting 
familiarity all the time by reading thes nice articles."

Your family members are heartless robots, and so are you! How can you waste time at web when you are web?

But I am glad you think my articles are nice.

6. From:
Daybedsgiant.Com
daybedsgiant.com
Submitted on 2014/01/29 at 11:28 am

"I blog quite ofgen and I seriously appreciate your content."

You should blog less and sleep more, and maybe your spelling of simple words will improve. And guess what? I happen to know about a place where you can find hotel rooms. Probably for cheap!

7. From:
credit debt consolidation
debtconsolidation.usabestads.com
Submitted on 2014/01/29 at 8:44 am

"Right away I am going to do my breakfast, afterward having my breakfast coming over 
again to read additional news."

Will it be news about debt consolidation, or news about tricking people to go to your sketchy website?

8. From:

cheap cosmetic surgery
cosmeticsurgery.adsboards.com
Submitted on 2014/01/29 at 3:53 am

"Magnificent goods from you, man. I have understand your stuff previous to and you are 
just too fantastic. I actually like what you have acquired here, certainly like what 
you’re saying and the way in which you say it. You make it entertaining and you still 
take care of to keep it smart. I can’t wait to read far more from you. This is actually a wonderful web site."

This comment demonstrates the kind of back-handed compliment that makes people want cheap surgery. It says a lot of nice things to get the ego up, but uses the word, “actually,” too much for it to be sincere. “I actually like what you have acquired here…this is actually a wonderful web site.”

II. English as a second language?

The comments above were clearly spam. Some of them were well disguised, but it’s tough to believe anything that is associated with links that lead to cheap surgery websites and places to sell your gold.  These comments and the sites they link to are obviously scams and I don’t believe them.

(I would believe a site where you can exchange your gold for surgery, but anything less is false.)

Other comments are a little more difficult to classify. I don’t want to be the type of person who indiscriminately lumps potential people into a trash pile because they seemed a little bit off. I have too much of a heart for that. But there is software that can do it for me.

The next three comments were flagged as spam, and although I trust software more than I trust most pastors, they seemed like maybe they were not-spam to me.

1.From:

จำนองที่ดิน
louie****@web.de
Submitted on 2014/02/07 at 1:50 pm

"hi!,I like your writing so so much! percentage we communicate
extra about your article on AOL? I require an expert in this house to resolve my problem.
May be that’s you! Having a look forward to look you."

This was a nice comment. I’m glad the person or robot who left it likes my writing. But I don’t want to communicate extra. Especially not on AOL. The only thing I know about AOL is that it’s old, and they used to send way too many CDs to my house when I was a kid. They were the spam bots of the 1990s.

2. From:
Russell
russell_b*****@googlemail.com
Submitted on 2014/02/06 at 9:07 pm

"Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was
a amusement account it. Look 
advanced to more added agreeable from you!
However, how can we communicate?"

I am conflicted about this comment. It too was very nice. But beyond use of the word “auspicious” the author fails to grasp such simple grammatical necessities as context and tense.  They want to know how we can communicate, but I’m not sure they even know how to communicate.

3. From:
กมส์ทําอาหาร
kell****@yahoo.com
Submitted on 2014/02/06 at 5:53 pm

"If you wish for to grow your know-how simply keep visiting this web site and be updated with the most up-to-date information posted
here."

The comment appears to say, “if you want to learn stuff, go to this website.”
It was the nicest comment of all. If I ever write a book, I’m going to quote this guy on the jacket.

Its too bad one of my best reviews came from a robot that doesn’t understand language.

But maybe it wasn’t. Perfectly reasonable and well-intentioned people could have left the last three comments included in this post. The content of the comments was nice, and they didn’t provide links to any weird or sketchy websites.

On the other hand, they are written so poorly. And they come across as a bit desperate for personal information.

Maybe the authors of these comments are just needy people who don’t speak English very well. Does this mean people who are bad at English are not considered human by anti-spam software?

Bring this up in your next sociology class and see what happens.