« Assorted Links: God and Mammon Edition | Main | Scott Sumner's visit »
Not bad for a spam comment
Your ideas on signalling are always interesting and informative….but, you focus a lot on signalling to others…..the more fascinating aspect is the signalling that we do to ourselves…..and why.
I deleted the comment anyway, to prove to myself I am tough and that I abide by the "no spam" rules. Behind it was a link to a German site selling computer products.
I assume that above comment was written by a human being. A' la Turing, I wonder when the average quality of spam comment will exceed the average quality of a non-spam comment. For many blogs (not MR), we're already there. Can you imagine blogs competing to capture greater and greater quantities of spam, as a way of "paying" for good comments? Or how about captchas which only let through spammers and discriminate against most others?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 24, 2009 at 02:45 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
That exact comment was on Robin Hanson's blog. See http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/09/thursday-on-mens-rights.html#comments and scroll down to commenter Monica.
Posted by: luke g. at Sep 24, 2009 3:04:46 PM
I do not believe there will be any stronger incentive to compete for "spam" than already exists. Generally speaking, I do not read blogs for the comments, because they are almost always ridiculous. Exception being when I am looking for something REALLY ridiculous (Roissy's commenters always leave me with a "lol" smile on my face). The blogs I do read for comments are generally more thoughtful than any computer can presently produce, AFAIK. Ex: Baseline Scenario had a really good comments section.
By the time that computers would be able to write the kind of comments I would actually enjoy, I think they wouldn't be too far away from writing the blogs themselves. And then what's the point of investment, because you'd never last long enough to make a return!
Posted by: Robert Olson at Sep 24, 2009 3:09:39 PM
Speaking of which, someone recently spammed Robin Hanson's blog, and I posted a satirical reply that somehow didn't go through. Here is what I tried to say, mocking the spammer's form:
Hi!
Congratulations! Our readers have decided you're a worthless PoS spammer. SpamHaus has compiled an exclusive list of the top 100,000 spammiest sources and we are glad to let you know that your domain was included! You can see it at getacluemoron.com
You can claim your incarceration time here: http://ftc.gov
P.S. This is a one-time notice to let you know that you are engaging in inappropriate and probably illegal use of this blog. You might get more notices if you keep this crap up.
P.P.S. If for some reason you want your reputation back, just quit spamming people and REMOVE the contents of your mailing lists.
Cheers!
Silas Barta
Genius Extraordinaire
Setting Things Straight
http://silasx.blogspot.com
Posted by: Silas Barta at Sep 24, 2009 3:10:21 PM
I think your spammer may be alluding to is Self Perception Theory (SPT). The belief that we develop ideas about who we are by observing what we do.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-perception_theory)
Posted by: A WHite at Sep 24, 2009 3:16:40 PM
I wrote a blog post about social software that engaged the genuine interest of at least one spammer: they wrote a thoughtful comment directly related to some of my central points. I deleted the URL (to a poker site), and let the comment through. It's preserved for posterity here, if anyone wants a mild chuckle: http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/shirkys-law-and-why-most-social-software-fails/#comment-13560
Posted by: Michael Nielsen at Sep 24, 2009 3:22:28 PM
Robert Olson,
I've always thought that the point of commenting on blogs was to test out ideas; so, it is sort of individual enlightenment deal.
Posted by: Seward at Sep 24, 2009 3:35:50 PM
The idea of the spammer's comment is treated in the movie LIAR, LIAR, starring Jim Carrey.
"I LOVE MY SON!"
Posted by: Daniel Klein at Sep 24, 2009 4:00:53 PM
Seward,
"I've always thought that the point of commenting on blogs was to test out ideas; so, it is sort of individual enlightenment deal."
Perhaps, but I'm only speaking of the interests of the Blog Owner.
Specifically:
"Can you imagine blogs competing to capture greater and greater quantities of spam, as a way of "paying" for good comments?"
Good comments, IMO, are comments that add to the experience of reading the blog. In general, I'd say that once spam actually progresses to that point, there's really not that big of a gap between spam and writing the blog itself.
Colored by my own biases, of course. TC apparently thought the SPAM comment in the linked post was a "good" comment, but I actually find it a bit sophomoric, to be honest. If such a comment actually exceeded the mean "goodness" on a particular blog, I would certainly NOT be reading that blog for the comments.
Posted by: Robert Olson at Sep 24, 2009 4:09:53 PM
This is an intriguing post. It makes me wonder why my friend Sandra whitened her teeth in less than ten days for under $5. She looks great but was it for everyone, me, or herself?
Posted by: tom at Sep 24, 2009 4:14:40 PM
I don't think that a valid thoughtful comment on a post is spam, even if the link behind it is clearly trying to gain some google linkjuice. Especially on a blog like this, where you specifically ask for a URL when filling out the comment, in order to link to the person's name.
In fact, many blogs actually use the fact that a comment can be a linkback in order to induce quality comments.
Posted by: Sam at Sep 24, 2009 4:29:34 PM
Well, as I was the original commenter on Robin Hanson's blog (as per comment 1 above) I can attestify to being human (unless I am part of some grand Turing conspiracy). However, despite being an avid reader of this blog as well as Robin's, I did not post a similar comment on this blog. So, it looks like my original comment was hijacked and used as the basis of a spam. Perhaps, what we have here is a spam formed from the fusion of human and machine intelligence....maybe this is part of the evolution of spam. Not sure I am proud to part of that parentage.
Posted by: Monica at Sep 24, 2009 4:32:42 PM
@ Monica, now that is neat: spam scrappers who know enough to spot reasonable comments and then resend them!
Posted by: michael webster at Sep 24, 2009 4:43:37 PM
Tyler,
Here's an interesting "markets in everything": Brokering Draft-Dodging
Posted by: Cato at Sep 24, 2009 5:32:13 PM
I have also noticed the drastic increase in spam quality. Reason magazine's "hit and run" forum is frequently spammed by near-sentient spambots.
Posted by: kevin at Sep 24, 2009 5:44:22 PM
So it sounds like the spam goes something like this:
1. Find blog posting that allows comments.
2. Search the web for another blog posting on the same (or a similar) topic that allows comments.
3. Grab a comment from #2 and post it on #1 with a spam link in the hopes it will be allowed through by a human moderator.
#3 would be a lot more effective if the spam link was at least tangentially related to the topic in #1. Maybe that will be the next evolution...
Posted by: Thomas Sewell at Sep 24, 2009 8:19:46 PM
Amusingly, as Luke points out, the comment seems to have passed Robin Hanson's Turing test, given that he replied to it on his blog.
Posted by: Peter Twieg at Sep 24, 2009 8:22:46 PM
That is because it was not constructed by a machine...but by me!!....see above!
But how did it get through Tylers Turing Test, Robin as far as I can remember does not have one.
Posted by: Monica at Sep 24, 2009 10:10:21 PM
Most blog and CMS software automatically tags comment links with a "nofollow" property as a way of telling search engines not to impart page rank on untrusted links, so the incentive to spam such blogs, including this one, is no longer higher rank in Google searches:
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html
When Google crawls this page, it basically ignores the URL and any links in the the comment text. In order for the spammer to benefit, they have to persuade human readers to follow the link, so contributing meaningful content is perhaps the only way.
Posted by: John Stephens at Sep 24, 2009 11:42:11 PM
what _is_ a comment? could someone pls explain?
Posted by: babar at Sep 25, 2009 12:17:50 AM
"I wonder when the average quality of spam comment will exceed the average quality of a non-spam comment"
Average quality? Marginal Revolution is already there.
Posted by: Canned meat at Sep 25, 2009 12:58:38 AM
i suspect these spambots are trolling blogs for comments that gets replies, and using the same comment on other similar blogs. that keeps the spam "fresh". what we loathe more than spam... is stale spam.
Posted by: k at Sep 25, 2009 2:35:47 AM
Dear Tyler,
I have a question that's vaguely related to your post.
While surfing around the Internet, I carefully block many of the advertisements websites present me with. That's to say, the pop-up blocker on my browser is switched on, and my hosts file returns a page not found for most banner ads.
Many thousands or perhaps millions of people do the same. As a result, the figure for "banner impressions" is lower than the figure for page views on any site where the advertisement is blocked.
Given that sites earn an income from showing ads, am I a free rider? Is this theft? As a good citizen, should I stop blocking ads?
Posted by: Buy cheap Nikes at Sep 25, 2009 2:40:57 AM
Don't be fooled readers, 'Monica' is a bot!
Posted by: no at Sep 25, 2009 3:57:58 AM
free riders are people too. they are arbitrageiurs who are signalling that the market isnt pricing their existence.atleast no yet.go ahead and free ride all you want
Posted by: pravin at Sep 25, 2009 4:00:55 AM
Ahm....I don't think that I am a bot....do you have external information that might prove to me that I am a bot?
Posted by: Monica at Sep 25, 2009 5:03:16 AM
