Are You Sick of The StumbleUpon Freaks?
April 1, 2008
If you use StumbleUpon, I don’t need to tell you that it’s a great resource for networking. You get to meet new people with the same interests and share great articles, photos etc with them. It’s also great for marketing your blog or website. If you write something great, many of your friends are liable to Stumble your post and drive traffic to your blog.
But, there’s also a dark side to StumbleUpon. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but some people don’t seem to like the fact that Internet marketers and bloggers use StumbleUpon. Some of these tossers deliberately thumb down posts we vote on and give them awful reviews. And lately I’ve noticed that it isn’t always done on a random basis either.
For example - a few days ago, I noticed one Stumbler had deliberately followed my stumbles and given the thumbs down to several posts in a row that I’d voted or reviewed. And I’m beginning to wonder if these StumbleUpon freaks are a new type of stalker.
Now they don’t always give the thumbs down - some of them just don’t vote at all, but leave a mean review. This week, I received this review criticising a picture I’d used in a post (the review at the bottom of the page). The user obviously hadn’t read the post at all and she complained that the person in the picture didn’t look as though they’d hit rock bottom.
Now, I’m not great at choosing pictures to go with my posts, but to me, the picture represented a blogger who’d hit rock bottom because they were so desperate to blog that they sat on the street to do it. What did the critic want me to publish? Someone lying on the street in their own vomit with a syringe stuck in their arm?
I just don’t understand the mentality of these people. We’re not there to spoil StumbleUpon. Most of us vote on topics that include self improvement, business and Internet marketing and we also vote on a whole heap of non-business related topics that interest us too.
Fair enough, we may get a bit of traffic from StumbleUpon, but we’re also there to share information and network too.
So how does that make us any different from other folks using StumbleUpon and what right do these StumbleUpon Freak’s have to stalk and harrass us? We may not like all the posts they enjoy either but, we don’t follow them round and accuse them of spamming, or deliberately give bad reviews on the posts they like.
Have you suffered attacks from some of these StumbleUpon Freaks? Did you confront the stalker, or just ignore them in the hope that they’d go away? Or are you one of the StumbleUpon stalkers I mentioned? If so, what is your justification for doing this and why does our presence on StumbleUpon bother you so much?
* The hate comments and abuse by spammers have been deleted and no further comments can be allowed on this post. If you care to read the comments, Frank gives a pretty good insight into how these spammers work.
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19 Responses to “Are You Sick of The StumbleUpon Freaks?”
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Hi Catherine,
This is the first I’ve heard of this practice on SU.
The one thing I have noticed is that a lot of “garbage” is being stumbled. There was a time when I could go stumbling and almost every page was great. Now I have to sift through pages filled with ads, stumbles of stumblers home pages and posts that lack (what I think) is quality.
Maybe it’s just me, but Stumbling is quickly moving up my list of “time wasters”.
Barbara Swafford’s last blog post..NBOTW Took A Huge Leap Of Faith
Hi Barbara - I haven’t come across many ad filled pages yet. The ones of stumblers home pages show up if someone has reviewed that stumbler, so if people on your friends list are stumbling a lot of those in a row that could be why they’re showing up.
I think a lot depends on what friends you’ve added and the quality of the stuff they review. I usually look at a lot of the stuff on the what’s new page as the reviewed stuff shows up there and people seem to take the time to write a review for stuff they really like.
The stalking thing is annoying. Also I’ve heard people say that they’ve had negative reviews and been called a spamer on their profile - just because they have a blog or website.
I’ve found that playing with the toolbar a bit helps you filter out stuff you don’t want to see. I like stumbling within a query. So if I wanted to see stuff on just business, or better, just “small business” I can get mostly relevant stuff that others have reviewed.
It’s worrying that there could be such a thing as Stumble stalkers. But could it also be someone who has a grudge?
If I was stumble, I’d have algorithms in there to watch for patterns like 7 successive thumbs down where the source is quite obviously another’s reviews.
Ian Denny’s last blog post..You Are The Best - So Why Don’t New Clients Beat Down Your Door?
Wow, I didn’t know those people existed! When I saw that picture I thought I wouldn’t like to find my picture on some blog labeling me as “rock bottom,” but I saw the point–she was sitting in the street on her computer. I didn’t realize that using a photo someone doesn’t like can get us shunned from the stumble community. How do these people have so much time on their hands?
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..A Change In Format, By Popular Demand
And here I thought Twitter was the place to go to get stalkers…. Yeesh.
Amy’s last blog post..Freelance Mentality: Do You Have What It Takes?
People who do that kind of thing clearly need a life. They have nothing better to be doing?
Cath, that’s a bummer. The good news is it’s a major sign of growth if you’re making enough of an impact that some users feel the need to counteract your influence with opposing reviews. So I guess we should be congratulating you.
Sterling Okura | bizlift’s last blog post..Update - New Champ, Paris-Nice and Full Feed
I have seen this a little, but I just ignore it because we can’t control what other people do, and it’s the road to anger and frustration to try. If you write a good post, it’s going to get mostly good reviews and thumbs up anyway, and your network will always support you, so who cares about some bottom dweller who has nothing better to do rather than stalk your stumbles.
Do what you do, Cath and concentrate on what you like and what works for you, and all the people you’ve met on StumbleUpon who are great to know. Choose not to see the idiots, they don’t deserve the power of your attention.
PS. My big gripe with StumbleUpon seems to be my profile has broken somehow. I can’t really use it as 90% of the time when I click on my toolbar or my profile/favourites etc it doesn’t load. I asked for help, but of course they haven’t got back to me. Not sure what to do. I’m lost without my StumbleUpon!
Kelly Rigby@ SHE-POWER’s last blog post..SHE-POWER Fiction: Mama’s Girls
Hi Ian - I don’t think it’s someone with a grudge - I think it’s kids or students. Next time you see a negative review that accuses the writer of being a spammer - click that stumblers profile and you’ll usually find that they’ve given several negative reviews in a row.
Hi Hunter - exactly. Who on earth would have the time to criticise other people’s photos?
Hi Amy - that scares me - I only just started using twitter.
Xtine - I don’t use StumbleUpon’s paid marketing service, because I only want my posts to be voted by people who find them valuable. I personally don’t vote spam sites and I don’t consider this a spam site either. I spend several hours a week writing posts that will help others. You spend several hours a week stalking people - so who’s the spammer?
Hi Kelly - Thanks for the great advice. I wonder what’s wrong with your toolbar. Is it worth reinstalling your browser? Contacting StumbleUpon seems to be a waste of time - they just don’t seem to respond.
Imorgen - I couldn’t see your profile, as you obviously Stumble porn and I don’t. Maybe your time would be better spent blogging about what you want to do with your life when you grow up?
I’ve noticed that there are lots of profiles deliberately thumbing down and writing bad reviews of just about anyone. Joining anti-spam groups e.g. http://spm-free.group.stumbleupon.com/
and then stating they are not spamming by seeking out all the hated people ‘named and shamed’ (normally marketeers) in that group. They make regular posts about how much they hate spammers.
What is so very noticible about these people is that they add their own site hidden within their profile full of thumbs down and thumb it up, along with a few other related sites.
These profiles are classified as controversial by SU. They get into the top of SUs stats regularly, and what is even more noticable - their own hidden thumbs up site does too.
I also have a hunch that some of these people even deliberately thumb down their own site, to make their own site controversial. All of their friends are negative hostile hate artists, which only adds to their controversial stats.
These people are not difficult to find. They thumb down your profiles and claim they hate stumbleexchangers and lol marketeers - although they are the marketeers themselves.
This is clearly a blackhat way of marketing which ensures that they have more leverage within the SU system.
Hi Frank - that is interesting. So a lot of these people doing this are blackhat SEO people. That is really sad that they’re too lazy to do proper marketing.
Hi Imogen - I have replied to your message from StumbleUpon. As I explained, if you feel that someone has impersonated you, because of your involvement in one of the groups that Frank mentioned, I will be happy to delete your comments.
Imogen - I deleted your “fake reviews” as promised. Please don’t come back on here and insult me further by accusing me of blogging about blogging, when it is clear that I blog about business and marketing.
Incidentally, I know several bloggers who have blogs specifically designed to teach other people how to blog and whilst some are total crap, other’s are hugely successful.
Imogen is sooo tiring.
People do NOT have the right to review negatively when they use really abusive comments of which I will not post examples of. I am so sorry to disappoint you Imogen.
Though I am sure you will find just by sifting through the profiles of people in the above mentioned anti-spam group - many very derogratory, abusive, harassing comments.
I am surprised SU allow such bad use of the English language in reviews.
Actually Cath, this negative thumbs down and mass abusive reviewing is catching on alot, due to the big traffic it draws in.
I don’t make a profile like this myself since, there are much better things in life out there
Hi Frank - I find both Imogen and Xtine tiring too. I agreed to remove Imogen’s earlier comments - as she said someone else was pretending to be her - someone who knew her email address obviously.
She then messaged me back to say she wasn’t reporting me to StumbleUpon - for allowing someone to impersonate her on my site. Like they would really care! Then she came back on here and insulted me. As for Xtine - he/she will be going in the spam folder soon, but I’ll give others the opportunity to respond first.
Oh and by the way Xtine - I’m nothing like a car salesperson actually, but I’ll have you know that there’s actually some really decent, genuine car salespeople out there.
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