MyBlogLog needs your help -- what do we do (if anything) about spam?

MyBlogLog deals with spam on a daily basis.  In some cases, it's really easy.  When someone posts Nigerian or porn spam, it's pretty clear that the right thing to do is boot the user from the system and go about our day.  Simply put, if someone sends a bunch of messages to MyBlogLog members linking somewhere outside the system, they're gone.  But there's another kind of spam, and we're not really sure what to do about it.

A small percentage of our users try to drive traffic to their own communities (and eventually their own sites) by a) joining hundeds of communities, b) adding hundreds of contacts and/or c) sending out hundreds of messages asking people to check out their communities.

It's interesting how people respond.  Personnaly, I could care less if someone joins my communities or makes me a friend, but heaven forbid they send me an unsolicited message.  For other people, it's just the opposite -- they're fine with messages but they hate it if one of their only community members is an obvious plant.

However, most of these members are also the most engaged in MyBlogLog.  When you look at their profiles and communities they have dozens of messages, almost all uniformly positive.  People who click through seem to appreciate the attention and appear genuinely happy that somone took the time to interact with them.

So we're at a loss.  On the one hand, we have a vocal group of members asking us to stop letting people fish for traffic this way.  These people who want us to ensure that only high-quality connections are let through, either by banning the users or restricting their ability to post or just changing the whole framework of the communities.  Then there's the other group that actually like the random requests.

So we're putting it out there for you to discuss.  How big of a problem is this for you?  How would you like for us to address it?  You've been great at guiding us on other areas of feature development so
I can't wait to read what you bring to this challenge.

We are doing one small thing that we are doing in conjunction with this post.  We've added a "report as spam" button next to each message you receive.  If there's something that annoys you, click the button and let us know.  I don't care whether it's the biggest issue in the world or a minor annoyance.  I'd just like to get a better handle on what's bugging people before we try to respond with change.

Thanks for your input on this one.  It's a challenging problem and it will be fun to solve together.

Comments

[The TriniGourmet]

I haven't had any problems to date but I think a 'report as spam' is a great idea!

[shardz]

but what about the "email me" function on the personal page? I know you have messed the link me so that the spammers won't harvest the emails... but they will catch on and start harvesting the email...

[Ian Robertson]

I guess I am one of those you are referring to, Though I only did it to kick start my community, I mean how else is someone going to find your community in the 10's of thousands out there right now?

I admit I've stopped recently though there are others that are still doing it.

There needs to be a way for "active" members to promote their community without spamming it to every user. I emphasize on active, cause there are some people that just join and leave.

Sure there are some people who will find mybloglog through my blog, but how are myblogloggers going to find my community unless I actively promote it? It's marketing in a way, bloggers want readers. and it isn't easy to keep up with the influx of new users.

One solution I suppose would be to limit a number of "new" posts that a user can do in a day (but don't limit replies)

[PersonalizR]

i dont think it's bad that people add others as their contacts, they might want to drive traffic to their sites, but in the end, the myblogloggers will tell the bad ones from the good, speaking of which, maybe we can have a rating system in place(just something like what ebay's) , so we'd know who's been good and bad.

[Eric Marcoullier]

Ian -- I think it's a context perspective. When someone messages members completely at random, I would consider that spam. If someone takes the time to look at a member's communities before contacting them, then that's pretty decent marketing. It's the former and not the latter that I'm concerned with.

We've thought of limiting posts, but I don't want something that ends up punishing members and feels arbitrary.

[Martine]

Hum!!! I am new on Mybloglog and I am not somebody who is going to just grab some contacts without asking them first, but I can see why some people do it and it would not bother me. I think that we can refuse any contact we don't want to be in relation with anyway can't we? So, this is not a real problem, at least, it makes the site lively and may be I should try that too...!!!! ???? Or not... But isn't there a way to ask people if they want to become your contact before just taking them without their consent???

[Ian Robertson]

Well I do try to limit myself, I have avoided all the "dj's" since I know that's not what they're looking for, as well as the french people that don't read english.

However since my community is one that helps all bloggers, anyone with a blog is my market.

[William Riggins]

A commercial option exists if you guys aren't strapped for cash.

http://akismet.com/

It's the same comment spam engine Wordpress is using. I would seriously recommend it, as it uses an API so it shouldn't take much in the way of development or server costs to get it up and running.

- Billy

[Busy Mom]

Tough decision! I like it when people join my community, but, I'd prefer that the messages be to me rather than hawking their own sites.

[masukomi]

it's not really a problem for me because hardly anyone reads my blog so nobody finds it to try and push theirs BUT.... I find it annoying when someone's posting messages just to draw people to their blog.

If you want to draw people to your blog write good content that others will find interesting and make sure it shows up well in the search engines.

[Ted R.]

Can you create user settings that allow for both to be allowed concurrently?

For example each user can pick who can message and join them. Seettings can be a) anyone b) anyone with less than 100 contacts c) anyone with less than 500 contacts d) anyone that knows my real email address e) no one.

I'm guessing, but we had a similar problem with Pals on Dogster & Catster. In the end we have 4 options for accepting pals and the complaints went way down.

I for one would prefer the 'less than 100 contacts' option on MyBlogLog. For every valid connection I get, I've been 5 marketing/PR contacts which has been annoying me.

Woofs!

[joy]

I don't know why, but contact requests bother me way more than someone joining my community. Perhaps because contacts suggest some sort of personal relationship? Like was stated earlier in the thread, I don't necessarily accept requests from the DJs or the bloggers who blog in a language other than English.

To riff on Ted's suggestion, I'd keep the contact threshold a little lower than what he suggested, since I think folks with 100 or more contacts are the exceptions right now.

In the MBL world I'm in, I could see the following contact rules working: a)anyone b)anyone more than 25 contacts c)anyone more than 100 contacts d)anyone who knows my email address.

[Todd]

Hi Eric, Thanks for the followup on A VC.

I think Ted R's idea is interesting, at least for advanced users. As I said in the other post, this hasn't been a huge problem for me personally yet; however it would be great if you could prevent what happened on blogger a few years ago. (the majority of pages became spam for a while).

Personally I'd lean towards some sort of voting system like the one used by MySpace and Blogger. They don't stop spam by any means, but they make it more difficult on people.

Combine that with Teds idea and some bayesian filtering to keep people from creating 1000's of sub 100 contact fakes and it might be more painful than it's worth for the spammer.

Let us know what you wind up doing! As you said it's a very complex problem. Interesting one as well :)

-Todd

[anthony greene]

I myself are a noob to the blogosphere so I do visit many MyBlogLog sites for hints on how to make my site easier to follow. I usually add the profile to my contacts if I like the content that I have read.

[OS9USER]

1st, I want to comment on the comments left here, before I add anything. A rating system really caught my eye (mentioned above) , but that is not the answer. It is a good idea, but I do not endorse it.

2nd, I will bend over backwards to help you Eric on spamming & hacking. You have no idea how many agencies want your input ! Google for example : has a zero tolerance for spamming. Once they get your IP (like this guy in Mexico) , you are all done. Your sites are dropped off google , and your IP is watched.

3rd) and lastly, the only way to fight spam is to unite. We need to share the information we collect with each other (Team work) working alone is fine , but a team makes things go along much faster. Us Bloggers need to unite , share information & stick together. We are stronger as a group than as an individual !

It is funny , I was just about to leave you Email, And I ran into this posting (about spam/hacking) - So I will post it right here, for all to read , I want to know when my account has been hacked or spammed or any mention of my name. Either Via Email or Chat it doesnt matter to me , but I do want to know !

One Solution Eric : Let your bloggers have a place where they can talk among themselves WITHOUT users reading. (you will need to verify that they have a site somehow) - But we can chat and post what we find their without worring about spammers reading it themselves. ( a password protected site or something) We can toss ideas around there instead of broadcasting this problem thru the internet.

OS9USER

[Rebecca Pack]

I think if it's just a blatant drive-by then it's a bad thing. You know "hey come and look at my site, bla bla bla". If someone actually reads your profile or blog and makes an honest comment about it then I don't mind at all. I'm not talking about "hey, that's a nice blog". Sure, they may mean it, but put something more meaningful "Hey, that's a great blog because ... etc."

[Jon Husband]

I'd like to get the spam known as "Eric, My Admirer" off my MyBlogLog profile .. I don't trust anyone who has 26,000 + contacts / friends and who lists themselves as one of my admirers without any knowledge of me whatsoever.

There is another person who also has decided to designate themselves as an admirer that I would like to remove, and I am unable to discover how to delete or block admirers who do not know me and never will.

Any instructions as to how I might accomplish these removals would be very useful.

[ipanema]

Spams are annoying. In my case, I'm very vocal about adult content sites. But they know how to get around things and now they'll invite you to look at their FAMILY photos. What's ironic is the fact that you have Report Adult Content button but you approve their membership in the first place. How do you stop them?

I agree to one comment that we should be asked before grabbing as contacts. I hope in the future, there will be an option. Sometimes it's disturbing not to reciprocate. I feel bad. But they don't read my blog. I commented in one blog how I define community. "It's collect, collect and reject." I mean, that's what some of these people do. They're not readers of my blog. They just want to add hundreds of members. But do they read and interact? No.

Ian, I like your blog, it's helpful.

"However, most of these members are also the most engaged in MyBlogLog. When you look at their profiles and communities they have dozens of messages, almost all uniformly positive. People who click through seem to appreciate the attention and appear genuinely happy that somone took the time to interact with them."

Your answer is in those words, Eric. There are people who like those blogs but not everyone. I don't know how engaging they are.

Scott Rafer answered my inquiry on categorizing MBL which he said you're looking into. That's fine. Come to think of it, I won't go guessing around what type of blog this person has. So if I'm interested in music and the arts I'll go there. I won't disturb other people in the process. And it saves time.

Sorry for the rant. I have to de-tour to come into your exclusive blog. :)

Cheers!

[Dianne]

I'm very new to blogging and MyBlogLog, but something I notice is the lack of firm rules about what is and is not acceptable. For example most forums have rules about what you can post, whether you can include links, affiliate links, ads for your sites and services, and so on. I think this would be a helpful addition, especially for newbies like myself. I don't want to spam by accident! :)

[Jeremy Stratton]

It's a tricky matter. Personally I've only done "drive-bys" when I'm thanking someone after I saw they visited the site.

My solution to this conundrum is that there is no solution. To me, you'd obviously have to change the very structure of the way the site works-in every way. I guess what I'm saying is you can't have good without the bad.

I think you have a good site, and I like the way it works. Keep doing what you're doing to keep the spam out and we can continue to use the options, you already gave us, to "police" our own spaces.

[Jeremy Stratton]

I've done "drive-bys" when just thanking the people after I saw they visited or joined my community.

Personally I like the way your site is set up, and have done just about the best you can do with the way you've built the site.

It's a conundrum that I think has no answer. I would say, leave things be. Sure it's an annoyance but sometimes you can't have good without the bad. Keep out the spam like you've been doing, and let us "police" our own communities with the tools that you've already given us.

[Franciov]

I'd just like to have the opportunity to allow or disallow users which add me as a contact or join one of my community. This is not a solution at all, but it could be a point od departure. The problem in this approach is that the most (?) of bloggers want to increase his/her blog popularity, and being in many contact list could serve the purpose..
However in my opinion contacts should be contacts for real!

[Noxketanob]

Hi !
I want to find out about poaeoq technology .
Who can tell about it ?
Bye

[MarkH]

This is a community of bloggers, right? How else are we to come together if we don't visit each other's blogs and communicate that by posting? How many individual sites are in each community would seem to me to be irrelevant, or am I missing something? I have selected all the sites I find that I am interested in. Is that spamming?

[Vlad]

I have about 100 spam comments every single day on my blog. I am using Akismet plugin for my blog to help me out with the spam. It is a great tool I imagine they may have something of substance to offer.