I received a comment a few days ago that confused me, so I didn’t publish it. It looked like Spam, yet was about causes I support, so I didn’t delete it.
Then this morning I sat down to give my blog some sorely needed attention and found myself starting an email to the person who had left the comment, then decided my email could be a post. My words are in italics. Slightly edited stream-of-consciousness and in my opinion, clearly demonstrates why SPAM and SPAMMERS are worse than SOPA! Such an invasive waste of time!
Hi Zheng Yong
Although I sympathize with your causes, I am not publishing your comment.
I cut and paste your comment here and explain why. I would not do this if I did not support your causes and think that perhaps with a little fine-tuning of your comment style you can achieve better results.
Hi Ms Alison
(Ms Alison is very polite and unnecessarily formal for a blog. )
I have feedback for you. You could change your WordPress’ colour background to light blue, light green.
An odd opening sentence, don’t you agree? The writer doesn’t tell me why they think it would be a good change. Is there a problem with the red? Is it difficult for them to read?
I like the color scheme, though recently attended a Content Strategy Meet-up where colors and their accessibility for people with impaired vision were touched on. Something about red and violet and screen readers that convert text to audio. If I were more diligent, I’d have found out before writing this post. Mental note to self: check this out. That could be an interesting post.
Also, the thing on your head is cool.
Thank you Zheng Yong, I give you full marks for this compliment. You’re the first to tell me that!
Please do share this with your relatives, acquaintances, etc in New Zealand.
http://nzfoodsecurity.org/2012/01/15/food-bill-anti-propagada-action/.
I have relatives and acquaintances in New Zealand. How do you know that? Or did you know that? Am I just being a bit paranoid? Or is your statement phrased in that way as a general statement? Now, I’m really confused. Who are you? Wow! This spammer is clever!
The link is about food and propaganda. I better check it out. It links to a comment made in response to a New Zealand food bill that appears to want to control what people grow and eat. I’m concerned about this, but I don’t really have time to worry about my relatively well-off family in New Zealand having their food-freedom restricted.
Yes, I know food production and distribution – the world over – is being excessively controlled, in both positive and negative ways. I’m suffering from Cause-Information-Overload! I can’t take all this in!
Yes, I know we’re all in this together – at least that’s what David Cameron says, and he’s our PM, so he must know what he’s talking about right? (WRONG)…I think you get my tongue-in-cheek confusion here.
Please also share this with others. (EMBEDDED VIDEO: STOP SOPA)
Whoa this video is intense and in-your-face. Who is this guy? And why is he smiling about it? I’ve listened to the first minute of a 14.47 video and I’m turning him off. He’s over-the-top. He’s too aggressive. His style doesn’t work for me. (Stop video.)
Who the hell is this Zheng Yong? Must have seen that I participated in the WordPress SOPA blackout…vague email address, and Gravatar says there is no such user. So it is SPAM. Oh why oh why oh why are you SPAMMING these two causes? Zheng Yong – this is so wrong! This is NOT how you do it.
(Restart video.) Oh my god, he is so annoying. Or am I just in a bad mood? I wasn’t in a bad mood when I started. What is he going on about? I’ve got better things to do. This is ridiculous. This is the Internet at close to its worst. I’ve got to shut him up. He’s an idiot. (Stop video)
and yet….this SOPA business is important. I’m an artist, a poet, I make recordings of my creations and I can barely make a living. I don’t want some smart-ass making money off my work by aggregating download links while I struggle to make a living. Why aren’t I a smart-ass who makes a living by aggregating links? Oh shut up, and get on with this post or you’ll never get outside for a walk and it’s a sunny day.
But wait! I don’t want my freedom of speech infringed. What’s he going on about? (Restart video) Something about a corp selling the software that makes piracy possible…Oh his message delivery style is so confusing. He is so annoying. (Stop video)
…nor do I want a major corporation making money off artists when the artists can barely make a living. This whole entertainment business sucks. It is so corrupt. Everybody wants a piece of the artist, and many don’t care if the artist makes a living or not. And what’s to say ‘they’ won’t use the anti-piracy just to take down messages they don’t want getting out.
SOPA MUST GO AWAY LIKE A BAD DREAM NEVER TO BE REVISITED. THERE MUST BE A BETTER WAY TO CONTROL GENUINE PIRACY. IT’S WRONG THAT A KID WHO LINKED TO DOWNLOADS IS CHARGED WITH PIRACY AND EXTRADITED TO THE U.S. THEY ARE SUCH BULLIES.
Even so, I am not embedding this guy’s video on my page. It sucks. Mike Mozart, and Zheng Yong – if you want me to listen to what you have to say, find a better way. You need to repackage. There are so many close-ups of your face I can’t figure out if you want to be famous for spreading the news about your secret about internet piracy or if you really want to tell people about it. And 14.45 is way too long. Cut it down to 3 -5 minutes and I might get your message. Sorry.
The video concludes (I fast forwarded) to Mike Mozart of Jeepers Media…
(who made the video, and introduces himself so quickly off the top of the video you have to replay to get it. A quick Google reveals him to also bang on about failed toys…oh dear, this is so wrong, this so not works as an anti-SOPA message)
…asking viewers of his video to distribute it. He suggests you edit it and redistribute. Mike – please remake the video yourself. Make a 3 minute version and give us just a few seconds of your face. You have a decent face, but the way you smile all the time while telling this story is disturbing. And please….stop shouting at me in my living room.
and Zheng Yong – please don’t send me any more comments or I’ll report you for Spam – even if you are banging on about causes I support. I do not support Spam. In fact, I am reporting you for Spam. Get it right!
Related articles
- Bill C-11 could bring SOPA-like piracy laws to Canada (ca.news.yahoo.com)
- Is SOPA over yet? (pierretasci.com)
- Megaupload Mega Shutdown Proves We Need Neither SOPA or PIPA (mediabistro.com)
- Breaking: SOPA and PIPA Fully Alive – And a New Bill Joins Them (newsworldwide.wordpress.com)
- SOPA Outside The U.S.: What it Means for The Rest of The World (currenteditorials.wordpress.com)
- SOPA and Blogging (dishdashdime.wordpress.com)
Alison Amazed 
That was a pretty intense analysis. I have gotten to where I rarely read my spam. I just want to know who some of these people really are and what their intentions are.
Lee
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Well, it was a pretty clever spam job Lee. What I don’t get about this particular spammer is why they used a spam method to communicate with me when they could clearly see I would be sympathetic to their causes. Also, why spam 2 causes in 1 comment – unless it’s this spammer’s intention to discredit the cause?
One of the funnier parts of WP blogging is the lengths that people will go to to write scripts to create “comments” loaded with some kind of link to their commercial sites. Luckily WP’s spam-catcher almost always nabs these culprits.
I thought I replied to this drelectro1 – maybe it didn’t post. yes, the WP spam catcher has stopped way more than get through – odd though because the next day another one slipped through…small numbers by comparison.
He was right about one thing. That “thing” on your head really is cool. 🙂
Haven’t had too many spammers. Like drelectro1 said. WordPress seems to catch them. I ike that.
But he was a clever spammer, wasn’t he? 🙂
Certainly was clever Jenn. That’s why I was so confused by it. Spamming me about causes I would most likely support. But clearly a spammer. It would have made much more sense for them to just write me a comment asking for my support.