Comments on: Hey Idiot, Get Off The Internet!

By: Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:00:10 +0000

No, there’s plenty of non A-List stuff that shows up there.

From what I can see, looking at your account, you first submitted to Sphinn about a month ago. That first story didn’t go hot, but it was accepted for consideration. No harm, no foul that I can tell, on our end.

Your second submission was “10 Blogging Tips from Perez Hilton | Health and Fitness tips – Hive Health Media,” which was removed from consideration. I’m not sure exactly why. I’m on vacation at the moment and can’t log in and check. But I think it’s probably because these weren’t actually tips from Perez Hilton — plus, you kept the blog name in the title, which the submission guidelines warn against.

Your third submission was a few days ago, on how to guest post and influence people. That was accepted but didn’t go hot. Again, no harm, no foul. People at Sphinn just didn’t seem to like it.

After that, a few days ago also, you resubmitted the Perez Hilton post, this time with a new URL. It didn’t work the first time, so I don’t see how doing it the second time is a help.

Overall, read the guidelines, have good content and maybe spend some time in the community. You’ve only voted for three stories yourself, one of those your own, two from others, over the past month. If you think there’s good content that needs to be elevated, casting a vote is a good way to do that.

By: Katie

Katie — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 22:22:29 +0000

I’ve personally had a frustrating experience with Sphinn. From what it appears, any drivel of a story whether it’s actual news or just blogging tips will be accepted and promoted if it’s from a popular SEO site. If it’s from a non a-list SEO blog, the story gets quashed. Hardly seems like a fair policy.

What’s the purpose of Sphinn–social media for A-list blogs only?

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:53:52 +0000

Thanks Danny, reading this post has brightened a Monday morning! Does sound like an amusingly bad attempt at link building. Don’t get less upset about these people otherwise there’d be less funny internet stories!

By: RdR

RdR — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:52:12 +0000

So the he’s idiotic enough to get stopped from spreading his idiocy any further.

Hmm, ought to be a reward for that — something about removing his bad memes from the pool, perhaps?

By: seogoat

seogoat — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 23:13:19 +0000

Being so popular, you’re bound to reach some muppets; just try not to let them get to you.

By: OneArmedSEO

OneArmedSEO — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:26:50 +0000

HAHAHAHA!! That’s some funny shite! If you’ll look at the guys sentence structure, you’ll see that he’s a pinhead. “I posted a link to a story, and get banned.” I think he’s a knuckle dragger…”and get banned” “hmmm Mongo only pawn in game of life”.
The internet is full of them, it’s amazing that they can figure out funny internet box in the first place! Or to quote the two hillbillies on a recent Family Guy episode that were arguing over who gets the VCR: “It’s my sex box, no it’s my sex box…”

By: Ros

Ros — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:37:21 +0000

I use Sphinn frequently, and find it useful. And on occasion I’ve reported some of the spam too.

But I think djb has it right, especially the second point: filter. What Sphinn needs is a way to perform some automatic filtering. Get rid of that reCaptcha (or add a second captcha field) and ask a random trivia question that actually relates to internet marketing. I bet that guy couldn’t name Google’s head of webspam, but every SEO worth his or her salt could, for instance.

By: djb

djb — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:42:30 +0000

So many people don’t understand usenet’s Standard Advice:

1. Ignore.
2. Filter.
3. Help others understand the Standard Advice.

Try it, Danny. Your blood pressure will thank you.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:05:08 +0000

Unfortunately, it’s not just the internet. There are idiots in the real world too. That’s why our world is so screwed up.

By: Byrne

Byrne — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:49:51 +0000

I’ve just started using Sphinn — no, really, just yesterday — and it’s a great resource. It’s too bad that people abuse it, but I guess there are a lot of abusive people out there.

If you read the community guidelines and moderation policies at news.ycombinator.com, you can see a great example of a community that tries to stay small and good rather than getting big and mediocre. When they see stuff they don’t like, they are merciless