On 29 Feb 2008, at 06:17, {removed} wrote: Name: Michael VanDeMar Username: mvandemar Email: {removed} Issue Reported: other Comment: Quick question... why is it that you guys are so vocal about wanting to kill spam, yet something that is nothing more that a full page staged infomercial is never questioned? http://sphinn.com/story/30577 I mean, I'm not saying it won't be a good product, but it even has a disclaimer at the end that it was written by the firm that does Hamlet's marketing for him. It's a long copy product ad written in infomercial dialog style... tell me I'm wrong. Also, I may blog about the answer, just so you know, unless you ask me not to. Thanks. PS - case sensitive captchas suck. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Kerry" <{removed}> To: <{removed}> Cc: <{removed}> Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 11:24 AM Subject: Re: Sphinn Contact Form Hi Michael, As this post does not qualify as spam, it is up to the community to decide whether it should go hot or not. The DeSphinn feature will allow you to do this, although it appears that a lot of people have already voted it as valuable content by Sphinning the story. Rob Kerry evilgreenmonkey Sphinn Editor On 29 Feb 2008, at 08:49, Michael VanDeMar wrote: Rob, I wasn't questioning whether or not it should go popular, I was asking very specifically why a what is an obvious advertisement doesn't qualify as spam. What is the defining characteristic that differentiates this this ad from all of the stuff that does get spamkilled? I'm not slamming it, either... as far as ad copy goes it's probably right up there with anything Don Lapre or Carleton Sheets might come up with... but it is still just an ad. Did you read it? -Michael ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rob Kerry" <{removed}> To: "Michael VanDeMar" <{removed}> Cc: <{removed}> Sent: Friday, February 29, 2008 2:14 PM Subject: Re: Sphinn Contact Form Hi Michael, It's my personal opinion that the article is not spam, users can disagree by Desphinning it and moderators can flag the post. Neither has happened and the article has been well received by the community. The article does promote a service, although I could not find an affiliate link and did not view the article as purely an advert. Removing content is a judgement call within a broad set of guidelines, the community and Sphinn judged this content as worthy for inclusion. Rob Kerry evilgreenmonkey Sphinn Editor ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael VanDeMar" <{removed}> To: "Rob Kerry" <{removed}> Cc: <{removed}> Sent: Saturday, March 01, 2008 10:24 AM Subject: Re: Sphinn Contact Form So, to clarify... you are saying that as long as there is no direct affiliate link, and the article has at least something like 10% of the content about something other than the product, it's ok for Sphinn... correct? Does that sound about right? -Michael