Which just goes to show that there's some things we can all agree on. Beatings for spammers being an excellent example.

Selling gowns?

Did you know that you could shave hundreds off of your annual insurance bill by switching to Mercury Auto?  It might be true!

The craziest bit was when I got spam in my "comments" section.  I wrote an article about canker sores, and then someone somewhere posted a testimonial-spam about a "miracle cure".  Amazing.

I don't have a problem with business owners having their own blogs. I don't call that spam. Spam is when they come on to your blog and post ads in the comments.

I think bizowner is funny, frankly. Gotta love the 'mutli-level marketing'. As long as people keep to themselves on their own blogs I don't see why they have to be removed.

The craziest bit was when I got spam in my "comments" section. I wrote an article about canker sores, and then someone somewhere posted a testimonial-spam about a "miracle cure". Amazing.

yea, I remember a spammer that was dropping their poop on everyone's blog.  I laughed for a minute then deleted it off mine.

" Yeah, I'm tired of that BizOwner dufus using JU as his own personal advertising site too...

But honestly, it isn't any different than Brad's Stardock posts. I don't think there's any rule against talking about your business on your blog. Spam is unsolicited advertising. I think to make that claim about bizowner would be setting the standard pretty high.

if you dont allow annonymous users on your threads...they can't.

These spammers aren't anonymous.

" Baker, the spammers aren't here to debate and discuss."

Eh, I don't recall a 'debate and discuss' clause in the terms of use. You don't even have to allow comments. How many times do we hear people around here say "It's their blog, if you don't want to read it, you don't have to." Well, that would be valid here, too, right?

I don't see anything different with bizowner than someone like, Col Gene. It's damned debatable whether a bunch of people are really here to debate and discuss. Most look like they are here to declare and treat any sort of debate with animosity.

So, if you are going to say JU isn't for people to showcase their business, then Stardock's "ad"-style blogs on the front page are no different than bizowner's. If they came onto your blog and started posting unsolicited ads I could see your point, but so far bizowner seems to be just keeping a log of events for that business.

One reason to be careful about this is that many people want blogging stifled politically, because they see it as under-the-radar political advertising. We have to be careful how we characterize this stuff, because come 2008 people might be accusing us of "spamming" home-made political ads.

I don't think there's any rule against talking about your business on your blog.

Number one, I'm not saying he's violating the TOS, I'm just saying that I'm tired of seeing his drivel.

Number two, he's not 'talking' about his business on his blog. He's basically cutting and pasting Harteis International's propaganda. If he were saying "hey, I just started my own business and this is what I'm selling..." then that wouldn't bother me so much. But, today was the first time I've seen him mention any kind of product by name. What he usually turns out is a Fred and Linda Harteis ass-kissing fest.

I do not like spam, I do not like green eggs and ham.

spam much like ham is not kosher and an abomination to GOD.


no offense to you heathens that enjoy ham or spam.

If a person can have a blog, a business can too. If they really spam your account, then I can see the complaint. Other than that, they are just spamming their own blog, right?

They probably have their own websites. This is akin to telemarketing. They're coming here to tell us what they have when we didn't ask instead of waiting for anyone who is interested in their product to go to them.

'

"They're coming here to tell us what they have when we didn't ask instead of waiting for anyone who is interested in their product to go to them."

If you mean 'here' as in it is our site and not theirs, maybe. Last time I looked anyone can join, so they are as much "us" as we are...