Matt is Mad, Invites Spam on Blog
Matt Mullenweg, of WordPress fame, is mad, and this time I’m not bitching about not giving designer credits in the upcoming (?) WordPress.com theme marketplace. No, this is even zanier.
You see, Matt recently published a post titled Top Emailers on his blog, listing the ten people that sent him most e-mails in 2007. Toni Schreider popped him 996 of ‘em by the way, he tops it.
This is what he writes after the list:
Thanks to all those who played! Better next year to those who didn’t win.
There’s a “luck” missing there, but that’s not why I’m writing this post.
Matt’s no newbie to blogging, but it surprises me that he invites spam like this. The post might be a fun thing to do, but I would never ever even dream of it. I get enough e-mails already, without being mailbombed by the hordes of fanatic readers I might or might not have attracted to my work. Matt, having had his blog linked in WordPress up ’til version 2.3 (I believe), should have a fair share of these diehard people leaning to the obsessive side.
Wouldn’t they want to be on the 2008 list?
This isn’t such a big deal, really, but it brings into focus something we all need to consider when blogging. How much of ourselves do we put out there, and how wary are we of inviting others into our lives, digital or no?
As I said, I would never do anything to encourage people to e-mail me like Matt did. I don’t mind e-mails from readers, but they should be sent for a specific reason, not invited by a quirky blog post about who e-mailed me the most.
Again, this might not be a big deal, even for Matt. And he can always delete the flood of nutty mails that might follow the post. It might be worth it, he managed to get a link from Wisdump after all…
Still. How much you put out there, and how you choose to encourage readers, that is something you need to figure out. Call it reader policy if you will. Thoughts?
was this really worth a blog entry for you?
By larissa on January 11, 2008 11:50 pm
Obviously? You don’t see the problem with doing posts like Matt’s, with that kind of audience?
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on January 11, 2008 11:51 pm
Whoa, tough crowd.
By TC on January 12, 2008 2:28 am
Just a guess - was your sense of humour surgically removed?
By Alex on January 12, 2008 9:56 am
I’m sure he has some bad spam filters to keep from getting trolled all year. Or, perhaps, these are his PERSONAL email contacts - since his mother his listed I doubt these are from his public email account. Even I, lowly in the ‘net totum pole, use one account for private corrispondance and one for the public.
Dangerous as it may seem to invite spam, I’m sure he’s not concerned nor unprepared for the mailbombs.
Very sweet to see you’re concerned for his e-well being :)
By Tadd on January 12, 2008 11:42 am
Alex, did I criticize the post? Did I say I thought it was bad? No, I did not. I used it as a springboard to invite discussion on how close you should get to your readers, and if this was a smart way to invite communication. Too bad you failed to see that part. Was that due to surgery? (Yep, that joke was just as lame as yours, there you go! ;))
Tadd, I don’t doubt that Matt can handle the extra spam this leaves him. As I said, it might even be a small prize to pay for the post in question.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on January 13, 2008 11:47 pm