The community is full of people from other countries who do not necessarily understand or follow the same rules we do (let along reading our guidelines), therefore most of what we get is crap now. Even some of those who have a Western name are not always what they seem to be. Not that being foreign in itself is the problem and I'm all about inclusivity but this is just ridiculous. We seem to be getting more posts that have nothing to do with business ownership.
The comment spam has been bad only recently which, I guess, is good. Maybe the past couple of weeks. Other groups have had comment spam and porn like crazy and we rarely ever get that. But the comments, yes. I instantly go to the members list and ban them, then search for all their comments so I can remove them. Too bad it takes multiple steps to do this! But I'd hate for someone naive to get taken advantage of. Most comment spam seem to be offers of loans.
I've been more ruthless lately because it's out of control. They have plenty of other places to post crap so I don't hesitate to ban. Once in awhile I try to educate but only if it's something I think probably has good info.
I just looked at the blind guy's post. I have no idea what to say. He didn't give us anything to go on. Is he computer savvy? Does he have assistive tech? Is he looking for an online business or offline? What are his skills? Does he have funds to get started? There are sometimes gov't programs to help disabled people get into biz but do we ask that? It is irritating that the other comments are spam. Rob Gordon
Fiverr We're get many people posting every single day with their Fiverr link to their profile. They nearly always go to the spam folder. Some post in the member intro category and others in all sorts of other categories. I remove every single one. I cannot tell if they are new members or not but by default the Fiverr post is promoting their work so I remove it.
It looks spammy to have a bunch of these promotional posts in the community - we get so many of them. And imho if they have a business going, they need to either create a website or some other page where they can send people and they need to write a decent member intro for it to be accepted here.
Members offering loans I probably mentioned this before but we're getting quite a few members offering loans. They usually go to the spam folder. As noted above, we're seeing them in comments now as well. They are a bunch of text with a gmail address to respond to.
I remove every one of them. A legit money lender (bank, investor, fintech) will have a legit company profile, page, website, business email address, etc. - not some random guy with a gmail account.
Spam accounts I think we are seeing an uptick in G+ accounts set up by spammers or even bots. And for sure we're getting them in this community. Many of our members and member requests aren't business owners at all. I wish it wasn't so time consuming to vet the requests. Just keep an eye out. I'm banning more and more accounts.
The community is full of people from other countries who do not necessarily understand or follow the same rules we do (let along reading our guidelines), therefore most of what we get is crap now. Even some of those who have a Western name are not always what they seem to be. Not that being foreign in itself is the problem and I'm all about inclusivity but this is just ridiculous. We seem to be getting more posts that have nothing to do with business ownership.
ReplyDeleteThe comment spam has been bad only recently which, I guess, is good. Maybe the past couple of weeks. Other groups have had comment spam and porn like crazy and we rarely ever get that. But the comments, yes. I instantly go to the members list and ban them, then search for all their comments so I can remove them. Too bad it takes multiple steps to do this! But I'd hate for someone naive to get taken advantage of. Most comment spam seem to be offers of loans.
I've been more ruthless lately because it's out of control. They have plenty of other places to post crap so I don't hesitate to ban. Once in awhile I try to educate but only if it's something I think probably has good info.
I just looked at the blind guy's post. I have no idea what to say. He didn't give us anything to go on. Is he computer savvy? Does he have assistive tech? Is he looking for an online business or offline? What are his skills? Does he have funds to get started? There are sometimes gov't programs to help disabled people get into biz but do we ask that? It is irritating that the other comments are spam.
Rob Gordon
Addition to community issues lately:
ReplyDeleteFiverr
We're get many people posting every single day with their Fiverr link to their profile. They nearly always go to the spam folder. Some post in the member intro category and others in all sorts of other categories. I remove every single one. I cannot tell if they are new members or not but by default the Fiverr post is promoting their work so I remove it.
It looks spammy to have a bunch of these promotional posts in the community - we get so many of them. And imho if they have a business going, they need to either create a website or some other page where they can send people and they need to write a decent member intro for it to be accepted here.
Members offering loans
I probably mentioned this before but we're getting quite a few members offering loans. They usually go to the spam folder. As noted above, we're seeing them in comments now as well. They are a bunch of text with a gmail address to respond to.
I remove every one of them. A legit money lender (bank, investor, fintech) will have a legit company profile, page, website, business email address, etc. - not some random guy with a gmail account.
Spam accounts
I think we are seeing an uptick in G+ accounts set up by spammers or even bots. And for sure we're getting them in this community. Many of our members and member requests aren't business owners at all. I wish it wasn't so time consuming to vet the requests. Just keep an eye out. I'm banning more and more accounts.