What's with all the spam??
It's mostly the hubs. I always pass the ones on the forums, and answer questions. When I went to look at what hubs others have written, a whole lot of the spam ones came up. I've never seen so many before, and was just wondering.
In fairness to at least SOME users with profiles that look "obviously fake", when the emphasis (where one posts articles) is "straight, informative, article" (that's more likely to be picked up in searches) authors of those articles often (most often, maybe) think that the point is the traffic and all a profile needs is, say, a few lines and the name of the author. There have been times and places when I'd include a very few lines, my name, and MAYBE some image. Once I started writing stuff that was an attempt at insight from personal experience rather than straight, "generic" (for lack of a better term) information, that's when I started to realize that something like, "Freelance writer and mother of three grown kids" wasn't enough for a reader to know that I wasn't just pulling stuff out of the blue.
So now with the niche site thing and more and more emphasis on writing geared toward that I'd think one reason it could like there's more fake/spammy profiles might be related to what I said above. Profiles and Hubs that look "obviously NOT fake" often tend to go with the kind of writing that is not "straight, informative". I'm just wondering if between the "real" fake profiles and any real profiles that look fake because people think profiles with "x type of writing" are not important... maybe that could account for the appearance of more and more spammy-LOOKING profiles. And, who knows... maybe if something is found in a search it doesn't matter what the person's profile looks like (if anyone is going to bother clicking on it at all). People often tend to do either/or thinking with this kind of thing, and they often aren't going to put in a shred more effort than they think a) they have to, or b) they should (with regard to whether or not they aim to reassure a reader that the person who wrote something is not a fake who is churning out "formula articles". If you put "not-a-shred-of-effort" (with profiles, at least) all in one big place it can look like "content farm" and/or spam; or at least doesn't look like "community of writers" (and maybe nobody really cares about that these days anyway...).
I'm joking here, but it does occur to me as I write this that maybe the forums need fewer threads on "help me get this Hub featured" and instead a new variety of threads, "does my profile give off major 'fake' vibes?'".
I don't know... I'm just wondering if the usual, and maybe even increasing, "real" spam is mixing in with the "either/or-thinking" and creating the impression that things are worse on here (spam-wise) than they actually are?
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