All posts by Mitch Mitchell

I'm an independent consultant in many fields, so I have a lot to share.
Blogging

Bad Comments/Spam The Same?

31 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I had to do something I hadn’t thought about doing in a long while. I had to turn on the Akismet spam plugin once again after a major increase in the number of spam messages I was starting to get. I had hoped that the GASP Anti-Spambot plugin would have taken care of all of that, but it seems people have found their way around it.


I’m eating a cupcake;
don’t ask lol

Even with both programs running, spam is at an all time high for me. It’s not unexpected as the ranking of this blog moves higher, and I don’t think it’s gotten to the level where it’s driving me as crazy as it does some of my friends, who often go to extreme measures trying to kill it, even turning off comments sometimes, which I don’t like as you know.

Part of the problem, of course, are what are considered “bad comments”. On my 1,200th post back in January I mentioned a conversation I had with Adrienne Smith and her contention that some comments aren’t worth keeping on your blog and that she just gets rid of them so that she can respond to everyone else and show a 100% response rate on her blog. What we both believe is that there are a number of people paid to post comments and have links going back to other sites, and most of these people are paid so little that it’s all in the numbers for them, not the quality of the comment.

This begs the question as to whether bad comments and spam are the same thing. It can be a volatile question to respond to because the kneejerk response is “yes”. And yet, I haven’t quite gotten to that point yet where I consider the two as symbiotic 100% of the time.

I’ve read some bad comments with a lot of grammatical errors and thought that it might be spam, but the comment was touching upon the subject matter so I follow the CommentLuv link back to its source and see the same type of writing on the blog. Suddenly that’s not a bad comment, just someone with lousy writing skills.

Is a bad comment a one-liner? Well, that’s up for grabs because I’ve been told by some people that on some of my posts I really don’t leave much for anyone to say if they agree with me on the topic. Frankly I buy that argument only half the time because I’ve always been able to comment on a blog with more than a one liner and make sure the author knows I read the post. But not everyone can do that so how does one judge that? I do judge those posts, and I eliminate a lot of them, just so you know, but not all of them.

What makes a bad comment is almost the same thing as what makes spam. Ergo, some highlights:

* Repeating the title of the post in the comment

* Repeating specific phrases from the content without adding anything new to it

* Writing something so generic that it applies to everything and nothing at the same time

* Writing a lot of nonsense and then popping my name in somehow; that’s pretty sneaky

* Trying to slip a link in that has nothing to do with the topic but everything to do with linking back to your site; isn’t CommentLuv enough for you?

* Writing one comment that looks passable, immediately followed by another comment that’s from the same IP address on the same post; what could you be thinking?

I think that’s enough to think about. Here’s the big question up for debate; do you think bad comments and spam are the same thing? The secondary question is what do you do about it?
 

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Books

How To Get On The News Without Committing Murder – Book Review

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My friend Beverly Mahone will not be showing up on any of my Black Web Friday posts. She doesn’t have to because I’ve written so many times about her and mentioned her so many times, including this interview with her that she’s like one of the family. If you don’t already know enough about her by reading this blog, then including her on one of the Friday posts won’t do any good.

How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder

How’s this instead then? Let’s talk about her latest book with the long title How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder, which I got to read an early copy of and which is, obviously, now released. This is a book that teaches you how to use your skills and age, if you happen to be of baby boomer age, in getting attention from the press, to the point at which they start calling you as the expert in whatever field you’re representing, and thus helping to increase your presence and your business. How cool would that be, having people calling you up to work with them because they saw you on TV, and it was free publicity to boot?

Bev does this and more in a relatively short book, less than 55 pages, and it’s a very easy and quick read, no fluff. My wife actually read the book, and she’s not a big reader, and she obviously likes Bev’s style because she read Bev’s last book Don’t Ask, which I wrote about here.

In this book she gives you 8 tips for how to get the media to notice you, then goes into detail with each tip. I’m not about to give up the entire book, but I’m going to mention 3 tips and hope that encourages you to at least take a look at what else there is. Here they are:

* Use Your Age And Experience As Advantages

* Build Media Relationships

* Learn How To Write A Dynamic Press Release

I have to tell you that while reading an advanced copy of this book, I decided that the second point I listed was one I needed to take advantage of. I happen to know a lot of local media people, but always thought it wouldn’t be right to try to leverage it into anything else because I didn’t meet them in other than social situations. After reading that section of her book I decided to contact a couple of them to tell them what I did and offer to be a differing point of view from an older perspective if they ever needed it.

Both of the people I contacted thanked me, said they’re always looking for new perspectives and said they really didn’t know that’s what I did, even though one of them had seen me at a live event where I gave a presentation, but unfortunately we were up against each other (I drew more people lol).

This is a great book to read and let me add this; guess who wrote the foreword for the book! 🙂 If that doesn’t get you juiced up enough to at least take a look at the book I don’t know what will. And if you want to see more testimonials and reviews about the book How to Get on the News Without Committing Murder, click on that link to her site.

Go buy this! 😉
 

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Blogging

3 More Things To Know About In Your WordPress Admin Area

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For some of you I hear the question now: “Why only 3 more things?” Because if you’ve followed this blog for awhile, or not, you’ll remember that I had my first post in September 2010 on 5 Areas You Should Know More About In Your WordPress Admin Area, followed a month later with 5 More Things To Know About Your WordPress Admin Area and finally 4 Things You Can Do With Your WordPress Blog You Might Not Know Already. Frankly, I think I’ve shared more about the admin area than almost anyone else except WordPress.

So today I have 3 more things I’ve discovered that you might not know about or haven’t paid any attention to. I have to make sure I’m not copying myself either; let’s see what happens.

1. Did you know that when you’re addressing comments if you hover over a person’s link under their name on the left side that WordPress will bring you an image of their website or blog? That’s pretty neat and it might help you decide if you want to keep the comment or not, deciding that a site might not be one you want to help promote via CommentLuv or through the link to the side if it’s just a website.

2. Did you know that, if you’re running CommentLuv, you can remove the “luv”, if you will, while keeping the comment? I don’t do this often but there are times when I look at the link and decide “no, this thing looks dangerous”, especially in combination with the first tip I just gave you. Of course if you’re like me most of the time you might have decided the comment isn’t worth keeping either in which case just delete it all, but this is another option if the comment seems legit.

3. Did you know that you can install plugins directly from your WordPress menu instead of downloading and then uploading them? All you do is go to Plugins over there and slide down to Add New. Once there, you can type in the entire name of the plugin you want, or if you’re unsure just type in a few words and do a search, and most probably lots of choices will come up with a ranking system from 1 to 5 stars. Much easier and saves time as well.

That’s it. What, you wanted more? Maybe next time! lol
 

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Black Web Friday

Black Web Friday – 2/24/12

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Yup, it’s Black Web Friday again, and we have some good sites for you today. Before I begin, I want to address the fact that I used “we” instead of “I”, when all of you know what I’m the only one writing on this blog.

Black Web Friday

In 2010, I was at my consultant’s group meeting and brought up the subject of whether sole proprietorships could legitimate use the term “we” when talking about their businesses. We all discussed it and the general consensus around the room was that all of us have the opportunity from time to time to work with someone else and thus using the term “we” is a legitimate thing.

I like that and it applies to this topic mainly because I’m thinking I’ve probably said “we” in discussing these Friday posts at some other time, and the fact of the matter is that I see myself working with the sites I mention every week to help bring black social media to the forefront and bring others into knowing that they exist. It truly does become a “we” scenario, doesn’t it? By the way, as a sidebar, “we” were included as a Blog of the Month entry on LogAllot by Sonia Winland; thanks! 😉

With that said “we” move on. 🙂 I’m starting today with a guy who actually gets a lot of love, but probably deserves more. Wayne Sutton writes Social Wayne, and this month he’s actually running what he’s calling #29 Days of Diversity, where he’s naming people of color he believes are impacting social media. He tells you up front that not everyone he mentions will necessarily be black, which is cool, but of course I’m going a different way. Whenever you hear of black tech in America his name comes up often, and he was included in a CNN story on the subject last year, which was really neat to see. He has a Disqus comment system, just so you know.

Next on the list is a blog called Happy Black Woman, written by Rosetta Thurman, someone I featured last year, but didn’t really talk about. Her goal is to bring about positive aspects of black women to counter the belief that all black women are angry, something I addressed in a previous Black Web Friday post. She talks a lot about lifestyles and behavior, and has a traditional WordPress blog commenting system. I was really impressed with her post about compassion, something I’m not sure enough people think about, let alone talk about these days, and if you’re looking for entry into what makes her tick check it out.

The final blog I’m highlighting today is a Blogpost blog, but the content is so good I just have to share. It’s called NewBlackMan and it’s written by Anthony Neal. Basically he talks about black issues, and calls out anyone who writes things that are either negative about blacks or put black people in a bad light in some fashion. I thought a post he wrote basically telling a rapper named Too Short that he was sending the wrong message to kids about objectifying women was great and it showed that he had guts and courage to do so, reminding me about a post I wrote on the courage it sometimes takes if one is going to participate in social media.

The final Black Web Friday of Black History Month; have y’all been out there learning something you didn’t already know? Remember, black history isn’t only about slaves and Martin Luther King. Have a great weekend.
 

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Social Media

Trolls And Mean People

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I hate bullies, and I hate trolls. I hate self righteous people that don’t have a true leg to stand on, yet believe their self importance is so prominent that they have to put others down to make themselves look good.


Kate Upton,
Sports Illustrated

Who thinks the young lady in the picture to the left isn’t attractive? She’s a 19-year old model named Kate Upton that’s just landed the cover model spot on the 2012 Sports IllustratedSwimsuit issue. She’s been ranked as the #2 favorite lady for Maxim magazine. And yet you’d think by some people’s standards that she’s not only one of the ugliest woman in the world, but that she’s a tramp, slutty, and almost anything else you can think of to demean her. Remember me saying how it takes courage to be on social media?

Who’s saying these things? At the bottom of this article I’m going to post a video of her at a basketball game doing her version of some little dance called The Dougie. I’ll admit this, I don’t fully get it but it seems popular with the younger set, and she’s absolutely adorable in it. The video has been seen almost 4 million times on YouTube, and it’s what helped launch her into the position she’s in today.

However, if you look at many of the comments on the website, you’d think she slept with Osama bin Laden. Just horrible stuff being said about her and the young lady with her in the video. What the heck is this stuff? Come on now, is this the best the world has to offer for a young lady at a basketball game doing a little dance? I took a look at a few other videos of her doing some of the Sports Illustrated layout and the same types of comments keep coming up; wow. Is this the best America has to offer someone who basically seems like a nice young lady just having a lot of fun?

Then there’s this broad (yeah, I’m going there) to the left, Sophia Neophitou, the editor of something I’ve never heard of called bible 10, and the woman who supposedly helps put together Victoria Secret live model shows. She had this to say, which I felt was unnecessary:

“We would never use Ms. Upton for a Victoria’s Secret show. Her look is ‘too obvious’ to be featured in what has become the most widely viewed runway show in the world. She’s like a Page 3 girl. She’s like a footballer’s wife, with the too-blond hair and that kind of face that anyone with enough money can go out and buy.”

Let’s see, Upton is good looking enough to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated but isn’t good looking enough to be on the catwalk of a Victoria Secret modeling show? This bag (yeah, I said it) has the audacity to say this woman wouldn’t look good in Victoria Secret gear? Is she blind? Did she just demean most of the women in the world with this elitist miasma of perfidy? Obviously she’s not that smart, since these pictures here are of Miss Kate in a Victoria Secret’s catalog, wearing said lingerie. Too good for Kate, eh?

What’s happened in our culture when we can’t acknowledge that someone is good or good looking or even just cute? When did our culture get to the point where we have to go out of our way to be this mean?

I’ve been trying to think of whether I’ve been this kind of mean to anyone or about anything in the 4 years of this blog based on what someone looks like. No, I don’t think so. Have I been this mean in general? Yes, I have called out stupidity when it applies to racism, and I’m calling it out in this blog as it pertains to this Neophitou woman, but she in essence started it.

In the last week both CNN and the New York Times have decided to try to dismiss her as not being “model pretty”. Uhhh, anyone remember Anna Nicole Smith, Marilyn Monroe, Vanessa Williams and a host of other very pretty women whom someone determined weren’t “model pretty”? What the heck?

To her credit Upton seems to be handling it all pretty well. In one of the news stories she said that even Giselle, the multi-millionaire Brazilian model was once told she wasn’t pretty enough to be a model either. Morons; they’re everywhere (almost as bad as stupid clowns!

What’s your thought on this topic and this model? And yes, I promised you a video, so here’s the video; someone contact Sire because he might not want to miss this one lol:



http://youtu.be/tMpQgDbqz6U

 

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