61 replies to this topic

[mcanerin]

Scottie, I saw your sig and clicked on it (Having worked at McDonalds for also 10 years during university, I was interested to see how evil I was - I was planning on buying a black hat and everything)

I think you have a great point about people *wanting* to spam. More specifically I think it's actually people wanting to acheive their goals but don't want to work for them. I'm sure if they could get to number one without spamming they'd do that, as well.

I'm reminded of my younger bother, who is probably 30 now but has the development of a teen due to some issues he had as a child.

He's really big on playing computer games (and D&D). Loves them.

What I find very strange is that he seems totally incapable of playing a computer game without cheat codes. It's not that he's not skillful, it's just that he simply does not have the patience to build his character up. He wants all the best armor and weapons and powers, etc all RIGHT NOW. Not in a few hours, now!

I've seen him on the net downloading cheat codes for a game he hasn't even installed yet. Worse, this is very common in his peer group (in his case 16-24 year old males). It's cool to have the most complete cheat code list in that group, and you are only respected if you have insanely developed characters - there is absolutely no respect for legit characters or cheated ones - only the skills at the end.

They don't consider building your way up to be better than cheating your way up. All that matters is the stuff you have at the end, and anyone who takes 2 weeks instead of 2 minutes must be an idiot.

Interestingly, to them, the game doesn't really start until they are fully "buffed". Once they have all the stuff they need, then they actually play (usually by ganging up on weaker characters, but that's another rant).

Honestly, I think a lot of "spammers" are from that peer group and to them, BH techniques are "cheat codes" for search engines.

Telling then that they are cheating will result in a "huh? what are you talking about?" look - of course they are - what was your point again? To them, it's not so much cheating, as how you start playing a game - buff up to the max as fast as possible, then duke it out from a position of safety (they usually hate dying in the games, especially if it means losing some of their equipment or buffs).

Calling them cheaters or black hats is a totally waste of time - the concepts are not in their vocabulary. They would probably find the idea of being a black hat very cool because 1) it's their fav color and 2) they would consider it to be the equivelent of a search engine "hacker" with l333t skillz, true or not.

I think these people truly want to spam, and calling them a spammer would simply be a badge of honor.

Let's put it this way: I think looking at gamer psychology would be more useful for dealing with spammers than looking at marketing models and risk analysis charts.

They even *call* it "gaming the engines....

Ian

[Scottie]

Some people in our industry seem to think that the only reason people spam is because they don't know any better.

My point is that it's a free choice and anyone who doesn't know better didn't bother to look very hard.

You can make good choices, even at McDonalds. The fact that you choose a Big Mac over a salad, doesn't make McDonald's itself evil. (Even if it is the icon of a bloated, capitalistic society that is taking over the world...)

<edit- adding link because I will change my signature soon- McDonald's is the root of all evil- and some people just want to spam>

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[projectphp]

I thought the salads actually had more fat

And yes, that was a good analogy, Maccas and spam. A very, very accurate one

I always wonder why people set the goal of "saving" so high. Free will dictates that some ppl are always going to do the wrong thing, and many newbies want to spam cause it is "easier". Also, tech people can see a way to write a script to do stuff, and that seems easier and better than working hard to write good stuff when they can't write anyway.

So, I vote NO to Maccas and NO to protecting newbies through censorship, and I hope everybody joins me in that

[Scottie]

I believe very strongly in teaching people the best, long term way to do things and I always will.

But that doesn't mean everyone wants to be taught the long term benefits, or quite frankly, that they will even "get it". The crusade to rid the world of everything that is bad for us, whether it's McD or search engine spam, is doomed to fail unless we plan to take away people's right to choose as well.

[Alan Perkins]

Choices that affect the individual are different to choices that affect a wider society, IMO.

[Scottie]

My friend insists that McDonalds is a society problem and one that is more real and more dangerous than search engine spam which really doesn't impact society in a signifigant way.

McD's contributes to poor health and ought to be abolished. Their prices are too low, their servings too generous. People ought to not have the choice to eat there, because it's too tempting to do the wrong thing and make the wrong choices, according to him. Overeating contributes to health problems that can kill people (unlike search engine spam, which to date, hasn't killed anyone that we know of.)

Should they all have their doors closed to protect society?

[lepp]

Lovely idea, couldn't agree more. Save people from themselves.

First McDonalds, then I insist we crack down on car manufacturers - no cars to be manufactured unless they get a min. of 50 m/gal and zero emissions. Only hybrid cars allowed on the roads.

Give a few minutes and I can come up with a longer list of companies that produce products & services that are potentially bad for you and/or the environment.

TV, computer games, candy manufacturers, high heel shoes, ... (you've got me started now).

[Alan Perkins]

My friend insists that McDonalds is a society problem

That's not the analogy you were presenting earlier. You were saying that people had the choice to eat poorly or the choice to spam search engines. I'm saying that one is a personal choice that, at that personal level, affects noone but those individuals (eat junk, get fat die young, etc.), the other is a choice that has wider implications to other site owners, search engines and searchers.

People have the choice to eat poorly whether or not McDonalds exists - even if no restaurants exist. It's up to them. People should be free to do whatever they want to do, as long as that does not infringe upon the rights of other people to do whatever they want to do. Eating poorly is a personal choice that has few wider implications, especially in societies with no public healthcare. You don't "owe it to society" to eat well. You do owe it to society to behave in a socially acceptable way, though.

Going back to Ian's analogy, if someone wants to buy a game then use cheat codes to have more fun wth that game, themselves, there's no problem. Again, nobody else is harmed (or even affected) by this action. It's simply not equivalent to spamming.

[qwerty]

As far as I'm concerned, they can keep their doors open as long as they don't lie about their ingredients.

[harpsound]

Quoting John Ruskin, "There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a
little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that
man's lawful prey."

That is just it - in all things including nature, technology and human behavior, once a vacuum is perceived some thing/one will fill it. Doing so may be lethal for some but vacuums seem to naturally fill themselves. A vacuum equates with opportunity, lethal or otherwise.

Society needs a prescription on how to regulate behaviour for the overall benefit of most.

Prohibition just does not work - witness alcohol and street drugs.

Social pressure does - witness the inherently bizarre trends and fashions that are perpetually rising amongst otherwise sane individuals.

I believe that social change occurs on a one-to-one basis and that laws reflect that change - not the other way around. And once ensconced laws become a vested advantage for some. Hence, the slowness of their repealing as compared to change at street level.

For every genious with a fool-proof system there is a fool with enough ingenuity to get around it.

So have impact with your family and friends.

But most importantly walk the talk yourself - then your world changes and everyone who so chooses to look will see the benefit therein.

That's the best you can do.

S

[projectphp]

I'm saying that one is a personal choice t... the other is a choice that has wider implications...

What about when your country has a public subsidy on prescriptions? If you choose to get fat and die, fair enough, but down here, the government subsidise drugs, paid for through taxes, for subscription medicine, including heart medication. It is called the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

IMHO, that makes weight and other health issues (especially smoking) a public concern, as bad dietary choices have a cost to everyone, both in direct cost and indirect loss of other possible benefits. That is probably worse than spamming, which has an effect only on those connected to the Internet who use a search engine.

IMHO, personal responsibility, in almost all cases, is social responsibility. To reverse the old statement, what is bad for the individual is inevitably bad for society. In some coutries, the health and well being of citizens is treated as a social problem, or in the case of the Japanese, a company issue.

Beyond that, I am not sure the analogy was between eating poorly and spam. It was a an analogy on the consequences of knowledge.

Spammers know what they do is wrong, or with five seconds of research would, as do people that eat at Maccas know the food is no good for them. We can no more save every fat person that eats often at Maccas than we can stop every newbie from becoming a spammer. Some people are fat by the choices they make, as are some people spammers by choice.

The choices of how we deal with either is important. Do we censor Macca's ability to advertise? We do for Tobacco in Australia (no advertising anywhere I am pretty sure, no TV or radio for certain), and the effects have been positive. Should we also censor articles on spamming, or the spammers themselves?

All this would change if, as Alan has claimed, spamming is illegal. Then the issue of personal choice would dissappear, because society has spoken. How society deals with Marijuana vs how society deals Tobacco is a comparable situation. Prohibition of Alcohol another.

Until that point though, the belief that all spammers don't know better and that all newbies are innocent is not valid, IMHO, because, wider concerns or no, some peoples is just plain bad

Edited by projectphp, 11 August 2005 - 12:38 AM.

[qwerty]

Spammers know what they do is wrong, or with five seconds of research would, as do people that eat at Maccas know the food is no good for them.

I'm not so sure about that. I figure at least some of the people who claim that there's nothing wrong with doing all you can to benefit your clients, even at the expense of many others, actually believe it.

Similarly, there are bound to be people who believe that, as a part of an overall diet, there's nothing wrong with greasy mounds of fried flesh.

In the summer of 1979, I worked for Joe and Nick at Pizza Pub #1 in my old home town. They were from a pizza family -- they told me their mother owned three or four restaurants back in their old home town, Naples. They both claimed that pizza is the perfect food: you've got bread, produce, dairy and meat all in one meal. You could eat nothing but pizza for the rest of your life and you'd be set. I still think they believed that.

[Scottie]

You mean that's not true?

as a part of an overall diet, there's nothing wrong with greasy mounds of fried flesh.

[Scottie]

What it all boils down to, in my opinion, is what can you do about it? How do you spend your time trying to offset what you feel is a bad thing?

You can crusade to shut down McD's.... or you can launch your own attractive, inexpensive food establishment with healthy alternatives... or you can get involved in getting the word out about better choices.

On the SEO side, you can swear vengeance on any who don't see the issues exactly the same way you do, spend your energy in negative ways attacking those you think do wrong.... or you can be a positive example demonstrating and speaking out about how things work when done correctly.

Basically, bad stuff is out there. All around us. You can choose to attack it head-on and in many ways, become as destructive as the force you are trying to eradicate or you can spend your energy in a positive way, reinforcing things that are done right and building knowledge and support for good business practices.

[ahernbrode]

We need to start a philosophical "what if" category. For a bunch of SEO's you guys can get deep! Whoa dudes and ettes.