Hello. I specialize in graphic design and development for web applications.
StumbleUpon is a great service, which is why it makes me sad to write this post. If you’ve been around StumbleUpon even a bit, you’ve probably seen a website which is popular, but doesn’t seem interesting. Yet it receives many great comments.
“Huge base with excellent articles”
“recommended to all”
“WOW! Awesome site. You can find anything there-” (This one shows up seven times in the comments for one page.)
“That is an interesting looking radiator.” (Referring to a plain-white radiator.)
These are all examples of StumbleUpon “exchanges” - the trading of one “thumbs-up” and a review on your page for a “thumbs-up” and review on someone else’s page. Unsurprisingly, these pages are typically packed with advertisements, and short on content. A typical Stumble Exchange can be seen here.
Edit: Yes, I am submitting this to StumbleUpon as myself, which is generally frowned upon. Note, however, that I have no advertisements on this page. I make no money from visitors. I am writing and submitting this because I hate SU spam. If you think this itself is spam, give it a “thumbs-down”!
What can you do to help? Well, you can give this page a thumbs-up for start, though that’s not helping to fight the problem much and I’m not in much of a position to tell you to rate my page as the content provider. You can also give positive ratings to whatever real users you see (it’s not hard to spot the difference) so the spammers votes don’t count as much. You can also report pages and people as spam. If StumbleUpon begins to notice a site as a consistent source of spam that site will become marked as banned, and no one will be able to submit or comment on those pages. You can see this on the Digital Point site itself.
The most important weapon you have as a Stumbler, however, is the “thumbs-down”. If everyone who sees a spam page gives it a negative rating, it gets hidden by all the good content on StumbleUpon! Edit: Thanks to Abhijit Shylanath for noting that giving a page a “thumbs-down” and leaving a comment may make the system think a page is controversial.
21 Responses:
Comment by 2Late
It is a great cause that you have taken up, except there is one problem. Look here and notice the date of the post. You are about a week too late. Maybe you should have done your homework first.
So Yes, “Thumbs-Down”
Comment by tylermenezes
They’re still happening quite alot. And most of these points apply even when it doesn’t originate from Digital Point.
Comment by 2Late
They are trying to play the system and I would agree that this is against SU’s TOS. What do you consider it when you say:
“This user is pretty active in fighting spam, giving him some positive feedback would help make his “thumbs-downs” count more.”
It sounds like you are playing the system too.
Comment by tylermenezes
“It sounds like you are playing the system too.”
No, I honestly don’t know this user.
Comment by 2Late
It does not matter if you know them. You are asking SU users to perform an action that influences results within SU. Whether that action requested is stumbling a site or reviewing a profile, it is still against their TOS, because it is requested.
Now I know you do not like to have people promote their own sites on SU, but what makes it OK for you do it on other sites?
Comment by tylermenezes
I am not asking, I am simply suggesting that it is an effective tactic. I have removed it nonetheless.
That is me, yes. However, that was a few years ago and it’s not something I would do again. Though this doesn’t justify my actions there, and I apologize to both the operators and users of that site..
Comment by ravi
i guess its stoped on digital forum of stumble exchange
Comment by Fastercat
I thought the whole point of SU was the sharing of websites. Spam or not, there are alot of varied interests in a number of subjects and what may seem to be spam to you or me might be of great interest to someone else.
Comment by Tyler Menezes
A lot of these pages are simply copies of someone else’s content, pages with no content (i.e. search portals), scams, or pages it’s obvious no one could like.
Comment by NowyouhelpME
This is an interesting-looking radiator.
Comment by Abhijit Shylanath
Agreed, agreed, agreed. Also, I’ve noticed that if you thumb-down AND comment, pages are still shown, because stumbleupon thinks that those pages are ‘controversial’, in a good sense. So just thumb-down, don’t comment. Also, flag the users who thumb-up these pages.
Comment by imorgen
“That is me, yes. However, that was a few years ago and it’s not something I would do again. Though this doesn’t justify my actions there, and I apologize to both the operators and users of that site..”
Oh come on Tyler, it was actually one year ago. Personally I’ve given you the benefit of the doubt so far but if you openly tweak one year ago into ‘a few years ago’ people aren’t going to trust what you say.
You’ve also submitted your latest blog post to SU since submitting this. I think this is what’s commonly known as taking the piss to be honest.
Comment by Tyler Menezes
“if you openly tweak one year ago into ‘a few years ago’ people aren’t going to trust what you say.” Eh, I don’t remember exactly how long ago. Point is it’s not something I’d do again.
“You’ve also submitted your latest blog post to SU since submitting this.”
Have you read this blog post? The fact that I have submitted it myself was part of the humor of the post, and it is specifically noted in paragraph 2: “Another reason this post will not do well on StumbleUpon is the submitter — myself!”
Comment by Jihn
whatever, if the sites suck, they dont get hits. its not a problem, atleast not yet
Comment by Tyler
“whatever, if the sites suck, they dont get hits. its not a problem, atleast not yet”
They are getting hits. Please read the article before commenting. There is a collection of users which give other users positive reviews, tricking the SU system into giving those sites more traffic. A spammy page can have 4 pages of positive, yet clearly spam, reviews!
Comment by Lynn
thumbs up..didn’t even know this was happening. haha
Comment by Amanda
Thank you for finally stepping up and giving this huge problem the recognition it deserves. I can’t stand spammers on SU. Now it’s getting to the point where I’m actually stumbling upon spam pages loaded with pop-ups that eat my space and I have had to delete my cookies more often because of it. Thumbs up for you!
Comment by ron
People who point out stumble exchange spam make the spam sites more popular. It’s better to leave them be and let the users naturally thumbs-down them
Comment by hipmonkey
Like ron said, I just give it a thumbs down and move on. I don’t see it as a huge problem, I hardly ever have to use the thumbs down button. Keep the goons from having us censored or regulated. We’ll do it ourselves. Just vote!!
Comment by Brian
Report the sites as spam. When SU asks you why you think they are spam, give them the URL on Digital Point. Just an FYI, digitalpoint.com is banned from SU now, you can’t thumbs up or down their URLs anymore.
Comment by Phycho
your site is garbage and so are you, you dumb little 15 year old kid, go find something better to do with your time then to complain.
Say your words!