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Downvoting spam posts

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I have come across several instances recently of posts on Virily that simply should not be there. These are (usually) “one-off” posts that are only there for the purpose of advertising a product or website. I get the impression that these get noticed by Virily’s bosses before long and are removed, but in the meantime they achieve their goal of drawing attention to what they are trying to sell. 

As has been pointed out by others, Virily can only thrive by attracting advertisers who pay for the privilege and does not want to be a platform for free advertising.

It bothers me that some of these posts have been read by Virily members who then make appreciative comments and upvote them. When I see such a post I do the opposite – I tell the poster to push off and I downvote the post, thus cancelling out one of the previous upvotes.

It is quite easy to spot a “spam” post. It will usually encourage readers to take a certain action, or will extol the virtues of a particular type of product. There will be a link in the post to a website that looks suspiciously commercial and which is actually an advertisement for the action or product.

It is then worth looking at the details of the poster, who is likely to be a new Virily member with very few posts to their name. If the details match what you have found on the linked-to website, you can be pretty sure that the person in question is trying to get a free ride from Virily for what they are trying to sell.

I would like to urge members to downvote such posts and not give the spammers any encouragement to continue with what they are doing.

  • Question of

    Do you think you can always spot a spam post?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you downvote spam posts as a matter of course?

    • Yes
    • No
  • Question of

    Do you think this would be a good thing to do?

    • Yes
    • No

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Written by Indexer

10 Comments

  1. How it happens that we have spam posts if each post of not verified member is going through verification? How virily aproves such posts? I now got curious.

    • Yes – that is an interesting point. I had forgotten about verification, because this is not something that affects my own posts.

  3. I think there are few people who write once in a week but do not regularly but they write well. It does not mean they are spam but by passion they are writing .

    • I am not saying that non-regular writers must be spammers, only that this is a sign that they might be. It is worth looking more closely at their posts and what they say about themselves.

  4. Great minds think alike, and fools don’t differ, Indexer, see my new post “SPAM” I use Virily’s official no spam image. I do not agree with your first paragraph, ” These are (usually) “one-off” posts that are only there for the purpose of advertising a product or website. I get the impression that these get noticed by Virily’s bosses before long and are removed, but in the meantime, they achieve their goal of drawing attention to what they are trying to sell.” The overall majority of Virily members, (about 2/3rds.) are spam/bogus posts with the proverbial number-credit for years as members displayed. ie. some with 3 and some with 2 years, so, there are either sets of rules for some and not for others or a lack of interest in the site’s management as a whole…

    • That’s an interesting observation. I tend to look – on a daily basis if I can – at the “latest” posts, and most of these are by Virily’s “regulars” – such as yourself. The number of regular posters is not all that great, although they probably include people like me who have a habit of disappearing for other pastures from time to time and then coming back!

      This means that the spammers are relatively easy to spot. When I see a name that I do not recognize I tend to look at the post a little closer, and often find that the poster is not a genuine member.