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You Didn’t Have To Click – In Defense of “Content Spamming”

By Gothmog | March 4th, 2016 | Categories: Miniature Wargaming Editorials

wrong

Haters gonna hate. If anything can be said about the Internet it is that. Well that and rule 34.

I like to think of the Internet as an unrelenting hate machine. It’s main output is hate. Anything else we get from it is a byproduct.

Fortunately, for what a lot of us use it as, that byproduct is awesome hobby content out of things like the Long War, Spikey Bits, Next Level Painting, Bell of Lost Souls, Faeit212, Frontline Gaming, etc. etc. (Sepulchre of Heroes. Yes a shameless plug, but I wrote the article to be on Spikey and not my site, so sue me).

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Unfortunately, you see a lot of Trolls ranting and raving on these sites via Disqus, Facebook or forums etc. Now you can disagree about opinions, about the fluff, about how to game and what is cheesy and what is broken and on and on and on.

But the worst is “UGH. THIS AGAIN!” or “OLLLLLLLDDDDDD NEEEWWWWS!!!!” and posts like that.

haters

Really? Did you have to say that? Sorry that you have been connected 24/7 and seen the newest linked content 27 times. And yes, maybe the site has shared the content in some form or the other. Sometimes they add only one small additional rumour, or only 1 photo. And as such they get accused of “content spamming” or “click bait”.

Here is a short list of why this mentality is flawed

Not everyone is on all the time.

Some people only check these sites once a day or every few days. They don’t always see the latest breaking news, so just like CNN or FOX, reparsing a story sometimes benefits those who have yet to see it. I am an ADMIN on the BFG community on FB and a memember of many Specialist Games groups, and still months later we have people saying “Wait, have your heard Specialist Games are coming back? Is this true?” Months old, but obviously not known by everyone. So those new Space Wolves minis that broke in the last 24 hours… yeah, probably a good chance that A TON of people have not seen them even though you have 16 times.

If there is a small “update”, just posting it without context is useless. “Look at these 3 additional lines. Now go find the article that was post 8 hours ago. And since that only had 1 picture, go find the article posted yesterday afternoon for the rest of the story”. Pretty annoying to have to do that.

Yes, these sites do rely on clicks. I run a relatively small blog (Sepulchre of Heroes), ~10-12k hits a month, 20-25k on a good one, 6-8k on a slow one. Once upon a time I had google adds. I turned them off because the earnings I made were miniscule. So little I could actually never get a pay out. Ever. This is fine, because I don’t need a server or have fancy camera or sound equipment, turn tables and the like. But sites like BoLS and Spikey produce premium content and have have such traffic that they require some sophisticated equipment. And as the long war guys say “We don’t do this for the money, but it takes money to do it.” You try running a server on your own with the amount of content and visits these guys get. It won’t be easy or cheap, that is for sure. So in order to pay for these things, they need the clicks. AND THEY NEED A LOT OF THEM.

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You didn’t have to click. And if you did, you wasted about 4 second of your day (in the 30 minutes you were wasting on Facebook anyway) to see that there is nothing new TO YOU (YET IT IS TO OTHERS!) on the page and you can simply hit “back”. Easy. Done. Was that hard? Did you really lose out? No. You did not. This was FREE content to you and the time spent was so marginal, you have no right to complain.

AND if you still feel you are being cheated, you can sign up for a premium service (Frontline on Twitch, the Long War, etc) where the only “spam” you will get it the constant repetition of the phrases “Yo dawg” and “Clutch” and most importantly “We don’t do this for the money, but it take money to do it.” But that is the kinda spam that make the Long War worth coming back to. Thing is, you have to pay for those things.

So I am a small time blogger in the shadow of giants. I put out only 6-12 posts a month. I wrote this without prompting from Rob Baer.

(Editor’s note: it’s true but there was this though- it’s a hoot. )

I did it because I enjoy this content. I enjoy this community. I enjoy the hobby. We don’t need to make it miserable and full of negativity.

So in short, remember the Golden Rule:

“Yo dawg, if you don’t have anything nice to say, it is clutch that you don’t say it at all. Stay icy.”

 

If you are not one to walk the beaten tactical path, then come check out more articles like this on Sepulchre of Heroes, home of the 9th Legion.
You can also find there plenty of other thoughts and discussions on the hobby and Warhammer 40k, particularly Blood Angels. We feature ample hobby content in painting and kitbashing and cover several GW specialist games such as Battlefleet Gothic and Blood Bowl.
Working daily to Bring the Hobby Back, so check us out!

Sepulchre of Heroes

About the Author: Gothmog

Hobbyist and Gamer since 1999. Blood Angels faithful since the beginning. I am also big into various GW Specialist Games and Historical Wargames. Love the hobby, love the fluff, Grognard for life. @Gotmog_Balrog www.sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com