Life of a spammer is hard. Any writer may tell you, finding motivation to keep going, despite the negative feedback you constantly receive, is not an easy task. In this episode of the Spam Tutorial, I would like to offer my editing skills to ease the life of the spammer. Aim: to be the best spammer you can be.
Previous tutorials:
Part 1: The importance of staying motivated
Part 2: About the nature of spammy comments
Part 3: The Importance of being positive
A note on editing
I'm not a professional spam editor. I regularly edit somewhat longer work, fiction and non-fiction, and sometimes I even try my hand at providing feedback for poets. Mostly at @thewritersblock. But spammers are not welcome there, and I sometimes feel their pain when they are rejected the wealth and knowledge of the editors there.
Editing is, however, a vital part of writing. To become the best writer you are, editing is necessary. Otherwise you end up with freewriting that should never have seen the light of day. Or, that should never have been published online. Editing is the polishing, the cutting out of the non-essential, making it possible make a piece focused.
Feedback to Spam Comments.
Let's have a look at actual spam, to see the different levels of spamminess and the different problems that might occur. I'll show some examples I've collected over this past week, to comment on the quality of the spam.
Example 1
Here we can see a problem that occurs often: is it actually spam or not? It is difficult to say. There are some elements that would make it spam. The self-upvote, being already a good indication, of course. But also the difficulty of understanding what is actually said, makes for another strike towards spamminess. Yet it is confusing, because the sentence is long, and reads as if it made use of some translation tool.
Tip: Shorter sentences, especially if you use online translation tools.
Example 2
Here we can see how the shortness of the comment works definitely in the favor of the spammer. Also the self-upvote indicates a quality spammer. Yet the abundance of emoticon might be a problem here. It is a little bit over the top. In combination with the awkward first word that is hard to find in an English dictionary, it reduces the effectiveness.
Tip: No emoticons. Use spelling checker to check for right way to spell exclamations.
Example 3
Here is a difficult case. The shortness, the positive nature of it, make this to be actually very good spam. It is personal, but still doesn't tell me much about whether this is an actual response to the post itself, or is more a reflection on the spammer's own state of mind.
Tip: to improve, this person could try put in even more lines, to make people regret reading all their comment even more.
Final Example 4
This is probably one of the better spam comments out there. It is both unique and not simple praising the poster or the post itself. It is positive and leaves the reader with a happy feeling about themselves. It's very important to make the reader or author think about themselves, not about the spammer you are. It works well, the short sentences are put to great use here.
Tip: Don't forget to upvote yourself!
Would you also like to get feedback?
Please leave your spam comment, and I promise to give you feedback on the quality of your spam. One round of critting per person only. This offer will expire in 7 days. If you would like to receive more feedback, send me 1 SBD with the link of where you would like to receive feedback.
