Running a set of popular websites (e.g. talkpython.fm) means I get a lot of unsolicited emails. Some are genuine and very welcome. But others, clearly spam. One day, I decided rather than just deleting them, let’s just make them spin their wheels a bit and return a little frustration.
I get daily requests to “guest post” on our corporate blog. Note that we do not have a company blog at all.
Here’s a real back and forth I had last week. It was beautiful.
- Spammer: I have just gone through your website and read some of the blogs; they are outstanding. I can get working on the article to send it over…
- Me: Oh, you read our blog? What is the URL of it?
- Spammer: Excellent. The URL is https://training.talkpython.fm/courses/up-an…
- Me: Are you insane? That’s a course, not a blog. If you cannot tell the difference, I don’t think we should be working on technical items together.
- Spammer: I have some good topics on python
I bet they do. I bet they do have some great topics. Probably stolen from legit authors with links back to whatever scam they are pushing.
It was a fun conversation. ;)