One-Word Posts

1. 77

   Aficionadaposted 13 years ago

   We all know about the problem with spammers in the forums, especially people who join HP and begin promoting their wares and posting links within minutes of joining.  Those issues have been discussed in the forums ad nauseum.  Even though that problem does still crop up, it seems to be much better under control than it was several months back.
   
   Then, not long ago, psycheskinner (mostly) and I (contributing) discovered a Hubber who had found an ingenious way to post a link - veritably hidden - within a forum thread.  It was an image just one pixel high. It was truly invisible in the post; but when someone replied to the same post and quoted it, the html tags were revealed.
   
   Now, a new puzzle has arisen.  A brand-new Hubber who posted one-word, unrelated replies to threads.  There is no visible link there; in quoting the post for a reply, there is no html that shows up.
   
   What could be the purpose of a one-word, nonsensical post?  What does the poster gain from it?  There's no conversation or discussion.  There are no Hubs that they might be trying to entice us to visit.  There are no links on their profile to outside sites. 
   
   There must be a reason for these posts, and I doubt that it is for the benefit of HubPages.

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2. 71

   Cagsilposted 13 years ago

   I saw those posts earlier. I guess that person only wanted to draw attention, regardless of what type of attention was drawn.
   
   Apparently, the person didn't bother to think before posting.

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   1. 77

      Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

      You're probably right. Some lonely person who has nothing much going on in life and wants to feel validated somehow.
      
      But ever since that episode of finding the truly hidden links, I am ultra-skeptical!    Wondering what else I'm missing! 

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      1. 71

         Cagsilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Now, that's a very large thing to be wondering about. And, no I'm not going to get into it.

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         1. 77

            Aficionadaposted 13 years agoin reply to this

            Whoa-ho-ho-ho-ho!!!!!!!!!!!     
            
            You're asking for trouble, aren't you!!!         

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            1. 71

               Cagsilposted 13 years agoin reply to this

               

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      2. 65

         Lisa HWposted 13 years agoin reply to this

         Hey!  I'm someone who hasn't had much going on in my life for at least three weeks (waiting for a project to start and just found out it won't start for another week or so  - and in the meantime, I still can't go on vacation somewhere)....   and I'm not posting weird links places.   
         
         In all seriousness, I've had some very weird things go on with link-related stuff (and most recently, with the same site showing up on my own list of "most visited sites" as if I visited the site 900 times in one day (and 400-plus times the day before), when I didn't go there at all).  This is a blog (and maybe a "sister blog", which coincidentally has the name, "Lisa", in it - might just be a coincidence, of course  ) that once had a stretch of links to my Hubs, but that went to ads instead of my Hubs.  When I made a big thing out of it, they first switched the links make them lead to my Hubs.  Since then, I can't find my links, but if I search my name the blog still shows up.  This wasn't the only weird thing, but it was the "most dramatic" one.
         
         I've scanned (with latest updates) my machine for viruses, gotten a new version of Firefox, gotten rid of cookies, and whatever else I could think of.  In the beginning it was only my Hubs.  Eventually, it was other writing I have on other sites too.
         
         I don't want to (and shouldn't) point any fingers, but really, the only place I go online where I'm as likely to frequently and regularly run into "iffy" people (or just strangers) is on here. I pretty much don't deal with/encounter strangers in what minimal other stuff I do online.  I know scrapers can get stuff (I've had that too) whether you're on the site or not, but I've run into other weird stuff (like that blog thing).
         
         If I'm on here in the future (I'm on here in recent days because I'm bored, and it's been - like - a million humid degrees out), I'm going to really watch what I click on.  It's not guarantee, but, let's face it, some people just seem more trustworthy on here than others.     (Maybe the moral to the story is:  Just to be safe, stay away from one-worders, if nothing else.    )  The other thing to stay away from (unless you're just in the mood to answer something and don't care if someone uses it somewhere else) is open-ended questions like, for example, "How would you create world peace?"   That's different from the usual kind of discussion question like, "Do you think Obama did the right thing when .....".    People come on here and find other people who might give good answers, and then they go post them on answer sites that pay the best answerers.  Just thought I'd mention that as long as I was "mentioning" anyway.  (Basically, that's why most people stay out of the forums, I guess.)

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