Site Comments: Stop the Faking

Hi, fellow affiliates! This may end up turning into a sort of rant, and I apologize beforehand if it does.

My niche is community cats, which include strays and ferals, and of course, barn cats, which is where my name comes in. My target audience is mostly the US. And other English-speaking countries that have similar progress in regard to animal welfare that the US does. At least for right now.

No offense to non-English speakers, but I know that some countries deal with things a lot differently than we do here in the United States. Some countries don't even HAVE animal welfare laws. I also know the resources and more about the laws regarding this stuff here. Maybe eventually I'll branch out worldwide, but for now, I'm focused on the US.

It's my cause. To open people's eyes to this huge issue and save kitties. Right now, that's focused mainly in the US.

Okay, so my target audience, who is also about 80% female BTW, and more than half are between 35-45 years old, who live in the US. It is to these people I'm talking to.

This does not mean other countries or men or teenagers can't get something out of my website, they absolutely CAN! But I'm NOT going to dumb down my posts to include the 2 people from say, Brazil that may read my post and not have great English. Not a lot of what I'm writing about is going to be useful in Brazil regarding feral cats, so why would I annoy the OTHER 99% of my readers by dumbing down very common terms everyone who owns a TV or spends time on FB knows in the US?

Especially as you can HIGHLIGHT a word, and do a google search (In your language) to get it defined if you're iffy on the term. That's what I do when something comes up I'm unsure about!

My Issue

I requested 3 comments on an article about why spay and neuter is important. I received 4 comments. Cool. Until I read them. Two comments I had to disapprove because they made no sense regarding my article or niche, and one I had to edit for grammar and spelling pretty heavily. The other was kind of iffy, because they used an inaccurate term for something and that drives me crazy, but since only dog owners would know to use that wrong term, I let it slide.

The two I disapproved, totally tried, but they were faking. Faking EVERYTHING because they had no clue what spay and neuter was. Someone referred to aggression after he stopped his dog's spay and neuter 'treatments'. One mentioned going back to the store where they got their cat to see the "ways they were spaying and neutering her."

Apparently, even common terms that I wouldn't think to define regarding pets (IE Spay and Neuter) got commented on in Site Comments from someone who has NO IDEA WHAT IT IS.

Say you have NO clue what something is in a post because that's a term you haven't run across much in English.

You have TWO options.

1) Google is your friend! SEARCH THE TERM! Would have taken one second to hear the translation in your language defined. Maybe they don't do it in your country, or call it castration instead, or whatever? How am I going to know?

or

2) Why the ever-loving-heck wouldn't you just ASK in that comment, instead of pretending (IE LYING) in hopes I'll just approve it because you wrote what I wanted to hear, you think.

Seriously, folks.

Stop LYING in Site Comments!

It is seriously obvious when someone is 'faking' interest in something they have no interest in. This is why I have a HUGE issue with people trying to control their Site Comments so freaking much that people are forced to pretend interest just to get approved. If you pretend interest in buying a product, website owners think other visitors will buy that product. I really, really hate that.

I hate fake comments.

HATE them, people.

I'd much rather have someone be honest and HATE the product, or just skip the comment if they can't come up with anything to say at all. I'm not that picky. If you can write a decent sentence, you ask a relevant question about my niche in general, or make a good comment about why you aren't into whatever, I'd approve that.

I'm going to start disapproving the obvious fake comments, guys. I was approving those that were done okay and at least made sense, even if I know they're fake, simply because I know some people are so freaking picky about what comments say that they've been forced into doing that so their stats don't suffer.

Fake comments are getting disapproved now. I want reality folks. Some members of WA might be decent at faking it, but most of y'all are not. It's kind of hard to fake an interest in a product that you have NO clue about. Just like people faking the spay and neuter thing.

You don't HAVE to be that interested in something to make a decent comment! Ask a random question. Tell a story about your friend who likes it. Tell them why you DON'T like these things, usually, but you had fun learning about barometer pressure or the best way to fold a napkin. Who cares.

Stop pretending to care about something you don't care about.

It's lying. I don't want fake nonsense on my site. I have ethics. I want reality. I'm only asking for a comment.

I am NOT asking for lying, pretending, or faking. You don't care about the niche? That's okay, maybe I confused you at one point? Ask. You don't know why cat people do something? Ask? Heck, you don't know why people like cats? Ask!

Or even, tell me how feral cats are treated in your country. I honestly do not care what the comment says. Just be REAL.