DetentionSlip.org, please stop the comment spam!

Dear DetentionSlip.org,

I like your blog. I’m a regular subscriber, appreciate your work, and will use your site numerous times for my school law class. But would you please, please stop the comment spam?

On Wednesday you left this comment:

You should have mentioned DetentionSlip.org they are ranked 10 on Alltop, just won Best Education Blog of the Year, and are read by thousands of teachers daily! http://detentionslip.org

On April 25 you left this comment (which I deleted):

Check out http://detentionslip.org to see why public schools are failing.

And I’ve deleted others in the past. It’s very clear that you’re not contributing to our conversations. You’re just trying to get people to come to your site. In April I even sent you a polite e-mail asking you to stop:

Hi. I really like your site and I also appreciate your desire to publicize it. However, you’re not really adding anything of value to www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org with your comments. To be honest, right now you’re violating blogosphere etiquette and you’re bordering on being a comment spammer. I don’t want to block you but I will if need be. Please feel free to comment, but please add to the discussion, not just try to redirect readers to your site. Thanks.

But the comment spam continues. And it’s not just me. Here’s your comment on Teaching in the 408:

Check out http://detentionslip.org for all the latest headlines in education. It's one of the leading sources for breaking news in our public schools.

And here’s your comment on ASCD Inservice:

This story is mentioned on http://detentionslip.org It's one of the leading sources for crazy news in public education.

And here’s your comment on The Homeroom:

Students have more to worry about than lunch trays at school. Check out DetentionSlip.org as a resource for all the crazy stories in public education from around the country.

And here’s your comment on Learn Me Good:

http://detentionslip.org is the only thing people are talking about.

And here’s your comment on Perez Hilton:

DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!! DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!! DETENTIONSLIP.ORG!!!

And here are your comments on The Huffington Post:

This story was featured on http://detentionslip.org! It seems schools across the country are doing everything they can to save money. Check out the site for more weird stories like this one.

I've read stories on http://detentionslip.org about high school kids that have contests during lunch to see who can chug the most energy drinks. They always end up in the hospital!

I read a story on http://detentionslip.org about a mother who brought loaded guns to a school conference!

Check out http://detentionslip.org for stories about school teacher drunk in class and caught with coke in school!

Check out stories about teens and sex scandals in public schools at http://detentionslip.org.

(and half a dozen more)

Not to mention your similar comments at The Fischbowl and High School Confidential and Teen Zone News and NYC Students Blog. And at Automatic Merchandiser Magazine and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools and the Las Vegas Sun and NJ.com and Newsweek. And so on…

Your Technorati authority is 21, which means that in the past six months you haven’t received even one inbound link per week [so, no, I shouldn’t have included you on the list]. While you may be getting a number of visitors to your site, you’re not getting much word of mouth. And the primary reason, I would venture to guess, is your inconsiderate and indiscriminate commenting. You’re angering the very people you want to be sending traffic your way.

So congratulations on your blogging award. Keep up the good work on your own blog. But please add some value to my blog or go away.

Thank you.

Comments

[mister teacher]

1.

Hahaha, I had wondered if I was the only one...

[Marshall]

2.

@DetentionSlip.org.
The last comment on the original post is the key here. I am one that has never visited your site mostly due to the constant references. It kind of reminds me of that student that is always demanding attention, and you just get worn down, not impressed. I agree with Scott, however, that if you are contributing to the conversation and have a legitimate connection to make, I'd follow that. Contributing means more, however, than, "Check out my site."

[Dana Huff]

3.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll keep my eyes open for comments from this site.

[eduwonkette]

4.

Hi Scott,

I really have to disagree that this site is providing content that enriches the discussion about public education. In large measure, the site focuses on tales of teacher misconduct. Rather than discussing these stories in a productive way, something that your site has consistently done (i.e. your post on the cell phone videos taken by students) the goal is to discredit teachers and public education in general.

There are 3.2 million teachers in America, and even if .1% of them did egregious things, we would still see about 2 stories for every day of the school year. What's the point of focusing on these stories when they are no way typical of the behavior of public educators?

[Justin B.]

5.

I am in 100% total agreement with Eduwonkette here and I do not use Dentition Slip for any of my school law classes. Sure, there are lots of educational law stories that pass through there, but frankly I don't want my teachers/administrators being exposed to that filth.

I really, really dislike Detention Slip. It is a 99% negative site and almost seems allergic to posting anything whatsoever positive about schools. And then it has the audacity to call itself "education news." Hardly. It is worse than Drudge in my opinion and is in it for the pure shock value to generate site hits to generate dollars. It is nothing more than a 21st century supermarket tabloid seeking to make money off of people's ignorance and fear.

It should not be included in any educational best lists, I don't care what its Technorati rating is. I am fine with all voices being heard in the educational blogosphere no matter what the background or the opinion ... but a prerequisite to me for considering anything a legitimate educational blog is having the best interest of kids at heart. Detention Slip does not in my opinion and is nothing more than a leech profiting by sucking the blood out of education.

[Marshall]

6.

So given that the general opinion is that Detention Slip (DS) is not a productive member of at least this site, is there an opportunity to learn here? The comment Justin left about tabloids simply begs me to ask if this is the "counterproductive part" of every "productive" medium. Is this type of thing the price we pay - and must live with - for the advancement in technology communications. No perfect anything, right? So maybe DS is the Howard Stern of the blogosphere. Some will live to follow the crap, and although not responsible or ethical, it will draw an audience.

[Rick]

7.

Scott, you're being far kinder than I would be. I don't know what blogging platform you use, but perhaps it's time to add this site to the spam list that automatically filters that stuff out.

[Miguel Guhlin]

8.

Why just NOT subscribe? That sends a clear message. I just scanned the site...interesting reading. Why must edubloggers always focus on the positive, education reform topics?

However, this site is more about advertising. Simply, he's out to make money. Not a bad thing, just an act that I find problematic for edubloggers. Personally, I'm looking for noncommercial reading from edubloggers.

What's disappointing is that if the best blog awards wasn't rigged--and I suspect it was without any evidence to back up that suspicion--then why was there so little awareness of "education blogs" as alternatives to racy, salacious content and photos like the ones on Detentionslip?

Miguel

[J. Calderon]

9.

I get the gist of your post so it surprises me that you link back to that site so much here.

[Hall Monitor]

10.

All,

First, thank you for the numerous links you have provided for DetentionSlip. We are excited to begin this new partnership towards improving the education system.

We are sorry if we have irritated the online community, but still strongly feel it is important to communicate these stories to the reading audience. Although there are multiple issues facing the state education, if we do not take time to address these small problems that occur daily across the country, then we are pretending they do not exist altogether. Many of these incidents can be avoided and changed for the positive if we begin to address the policies in place and accept that change is necessary for improvement.

While all education sites offer this premise, we believe it takes a DetentionSlip to ruffle the feathers, and hopefully ultimately, open some eyes. Unfortunately, it sometimes takes more than one trip to the Principals office to learn your lesson.

[Christy Tucker]

11.

You might consider adding nofollow to all the links to Detention Slip in this post to avoid giving them any more "Google Juice." Just add rel="nofollow" to each of the links in the html code.

[Tucker]

12.

Christy -- these people aren't evil. They are an edgy ambitious start-up who are putting some comments on stories they are covering / related blogs. I don't even think it's border line annoying -- the cool thing about the internet is you can ignore it. Sure, if DI did ask them to stop, and they kept it up, then ok, hate them. Plus, they have tons of traffic, people do seem to like them, and the content is relevant.

But of course, if you need someone or something to "hate", then this isn't really about http://DetentionSlip.org now is it?

I love these guys. All of our teachers read them now. We even print this out at our weekly staff meetings and discuss it. It's a great site!

~TC