You're unconsciously being a spammer, stop now!

Welcome to another episode of read.cash basics! Just kidding, LOL.

And yes, you're reading the title right! Before anything else, I just want to clear it out that I am not accusing anyone of being a spammer, just read the whole thing first before you react.

This article's purpose is not to call out anyone for being a spammer, this is more like an awareness because as my title states, "unconsciously". These are just some of my observations on the platform, I based it solely on my own perspective so if ever that there's a part of this article which you don't agree, feel free to share it on the comment section below. :)

If it so happened that you are doing some of the things that I will mention below, then you're unconsciously being a spammer, and that should stop.

I listed some of the things that some users are doing which I can consider spamming. I'm not saying that they are really spammers, actually, I am also guilty with some of the things that I am about to say in here, and that thought awakened me that I really should stop doing some of those things.

• saying the same comments over and over again

What I mean in this is that, I just noticed that some of our comments are being generic. Whenever I read comments, may it be my article or not, a comment consisting "thank you", "you're welcome", and "congratulations" are always present.

I'm not saying that it's not right but maybe we are overusing it already. I mean, it can't be helped. I also do this one. When I posted an achievement, of course, congratulatory messages will come, and what can I say aside from thank you right? And then you're welcome will follow.

But maybe, we could do something about how we can make each comments unique despite the use of the generic words which I mentioned above. We can add messages based on how we know that user. We can also tackle about some things they mentioned on their article instead of focusing only on their achievement.

Think of commenting as if you are writing to a friend, make it more personal, thoughtful and what you say to one user should be at least different to another user. We all have different experiences. User 1 might have achieved his 1BCH in 2 months while user 2 achieved it in 6 months. That fact alone is already a huge difference so maybe we can produce another comment other than "congratulations! Road to 2BCH!". Can we and shall we?

• plugging went overboard

This is another thing that I think should be addressed. Of course, there is nothing wrong in promoting our own article, it's allowed, and we all do that I think. However, we should be aware when it's getting overboard.

We can share some part of our article when we are promoting it so that readers can have a sneak peak on what it's all about. We can share the summary of it, we can share few lines that can caught reader's attention. We can even use clickbait.

But one thing that we shouldn't do is to insinuate that it is necessary that they should read our article. Plug it, drop it, but never say such words that would appear like it's required for us to read your article.

We have the liberty to plug and promote it but let's promote it with grace. Readers will read it if they want to read it, because they can relate to it. Not because they are too shy or worst, irritated on our constant plugging.

We can post it on our noise.cash account but posting it once or twice should be enough. I also think that it's okay to promote it privately but be careful to not be too intrusive. You can also plug it in conversations but make sure that it's related to the conversation. Avoid plugging it every chance you get even though it is unrelated to the conversation.

It can be really annoying and honestly and personally, it just gives me more reason not to read articles coming from plugging like that. It's giving me the feels that it is necessary for me to read that article and that it's giving me pressure that I should read it immediately.

We wouldn't want to give our readers that kind of feels right? We want to give them the excitement and the lessons on our articles, we want to be remembered because of having such a nice writeup, not because we're the annoying writer who's persistency went overboard on plugging our articles.

Again, there's nothing wrong in plugging, but don't go overboard. Okay?

• tip back, read back

Another thing that we should be careful to read between the lines. Like what I mentioned above, there's also nothing wrong with tipping comments to your articles, and tipping the articles of your readers. There's also nothing wrong with also reading the articles of your readers, I also do that and I do encourage that. But I just want to ask this question, what is your purpose of doing that?

In tipping back and reading back, we should have clear intention. Are we tipping them because they deserve it and we really want to give it to them, or are we tipping just for the badge?

Are we also reading their articles because we want to read it or it's just because we want to pay them back for also reading their articles? Are we only limiting ourselves with only reading articles from those who supports us and disregard those who doesn't support us back?

What I'm saying in here is that we must read the articles of others because we want to read it. It's nice to pay it forward and it's a nice attitude to return the favor to your readers by also supporting them but let's also make sure to not limit ourselves with only reading articles from those who support us.

Explore in the platform, interact to new people. There's a lot of articles and writers out there who deserve our appreciation and support and it's just a shame to missed out from them just because they are not our supporter.

Again, just to be clear, it's nice to pay it forward or to give back, but make sure to have the intention that you really want to read their article, not just because you want to return their favor.

• not reading the full article

I've been telling this quite a lot eh?

Not reading the full article might result to unrelated comment because there's a high chance that we won't get the full context of the article. And when we comment unrelated things, it's obviously spamming.

I won't elaborate this further, but please, read the full article. Don't just comment just for the sake of commenting or maybe tips or exposure.

I'm sure most of us who are readers in here are also trying to write in here. Would you also want to receive unrelated comments? If not, then be a model for yourself. Read the full article then feel free to express your thoughts through comment.

I guess, that would be all for now. I've been meaning to write about this since last month and finally, I made it. I'm kind of nervous to published this right now though. I feel like I didn't make any sense and some users could hate me for this. But please, no. hehe

Just like what I've said, I'm also guilty of doing some things which I have mentioned above. And that should stop.

We're not spammers but we have the tendency to be one without us even noticing. I hope that this article was able to bring awareness to all of us to be more careful on our actions at this very platform.

For the nth time, offending or accusing someone to be a spammer isn't the intention of this article but if I happened to actually do that, if this article might appear offending to some, I apologize.

Geez. I'm really nervous with this one but since I've already done it, I'm taking the risk to actually publish it.

Shameless plug for my other read.cash related articles:

• The Basics of Commenting

• The Power of Tipping: Take Part of the BCH's Growth!

• 3C's to Practice here at read.cash

• Paying back for the value they have given us

Any reactions coming from you guys is acceptable at the comment section. Thanks for reading this far and as always, take care! :)

No. 116, Published: 09, August 2021