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Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

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Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#22

Post by MikeCapone »

ashleyw wrote: post #10

Wasn't Mahalo's founding goal to improve search by creating quality pages written by humans, without the spam and low quality content you get with traditional search engines?

That's what I remember too. Guess they figured out it was hard, and they couldn't compete with Wikipedia.

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#23

Post by tptacek »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

Can we please stop giving Mahalo and Jason Calacanis more airtime than they deserve ? Every post like this just fuels the fire and creates more drama around the theme and in the end will benefit the spammer. There is no such thing as 'bad publicity'.

No. This isn't someone commenting on an inflammatory comment that Calacanis made in order to attract attention. It's someone outing Calacanis for shady business practices, and putting more pressure on Google to end those practices.

It's part of the search engine scammer playbook to stay just close enough to the line for people like us to get exhausted hearing about it.

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#24

Post by houseabsolute »

earle wrote: post #7
dschobel wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies like Google care about and have responded to populist uprisings like this in the past (especially as it relates to search quality). I imagine that's the actual goal here.

Why would they? This generates revenue for Google. There's no excuse for them not having banning them from day one, like they do every other individual trying to capitalize on the same tactics -- only the sheer capitalization and size that Jason brought to the table allowed him to get away with this at scale. Shame on Google for having double standards, IMHO.

Google has made revenue negative banning decisions in the past. They have demonstrated that they recognize that the long-term quality of their index is more important than short term profits.

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#25

Post by dschobel »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
dschobel wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies like Google care about and have responded to populist uprisings like this in the past (especially as it relates to search quality). I imagine that's the actual goal here.

If google cared they could switch him off in 2 seconds flat. And if they're not aware by now they're asleep at the switch.

You're conflating Google's caring about the alleged practice and the public's perception of the practice.

If people are qualitatively unhappy with search results, Google will care. These posts serve to highlight that displeasure.

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#27

Post by three14 »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #26

Also, just relax and have a beer at the This Week in Startups party at SXSW.... life is too short to be so angry/upset about nothing! RSVP here www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=342222228076&ref=mf I'm not the worst guy in the world... you'll actually have a good time.

If you're willing to make a few hundred thousand people have more trouble finding what they're looking for by landing them on your stub pages, just for your personal gain, does that make you the best guy in the world?

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#28

Post by chrischen »

NathanKP wrote: post #20
[deleted] wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

A downvote is hardly punishment, it is just a community measure of the worth of a comment. From that point of view it is a learning experience, as you learn what is valuable to other people and what is not at all valuable. If you can't handle correction, or the opinions of others, then Hacker News isn't for you. If you want to improve, learn more, and become a sharper, more attuned, internet citizen then this is the…

When you measure something, like height, it's usually a uni-directional growth.

With karma here, it's bi-directional. So a downvote can actually take away your earnings so it's not that great of a measure because a polarizing comment could have +100 and -100 masked underneath a 0.

It is a learning experience. But just because it conditions people towards some behavior doesn't mean it's not also punishment. Punishment is a type of conditioning too, but it's also usually the less ideal method.

Re: Mahalo's new spam is worse than old

#29

Post by cynicalkane »

earle wrote: post #7
dschobel wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies like Google care about and have responded to populist uprisings like this in the past (especially as it relates to search quality). I imagine that's the actual goal here.

Why would they? This generates revenue for Google. There's no excuse for them not having banning them from day one, like they do every other individual trying to capitalize on the same tactics -- only the sheer capitalization and size that Jason brought to the table allowed him to get away with this at scale. Shame on Google for having double standards, IMHO.

Google ultimately generates revenue from people using their engine and ad server to find things. If the quality thereof goes down, you will see people flow out of Google. If you say, no, that won't happen, remember people have to flow into Google in the first place... it's not the default search engine for the majority of installs...
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