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Non English Language Blogs, And Abuse Review

With Blogger blogs becoming more popular in countries where English is not the native language, we've seen a lot of blogs classified as spam - both righteously, and spuriously.

Most spam reviews, originally, involved blogs with commercial spam - excessive advertisements, with little subject content. As the focus of spam classification shifted to blogs with content, we've been seeing more non commercial classifications - large blogs with unfocused subjects, and content scraped or syndicated.

Combining the two trends - more blogs in non English languages, and spam classifications which focus on non commercial content, we see blogs which require more people to review. And the people required need familiarity with the languages, and the subjects, of the blogs which need review.

As an expert helper in Blogger Help Forums, I've seen a lot of trends, among the spam review requests, started in Blogger Help Forum: Get Help with an Issue.

Blogs written in English are not difficult to review.
With non commercial spam, and large blogs full of non focused content, or scraped / syndicated content, which are published in English, Google is truly your friend.

It is not difficult to identify blogs that are righteously, or spuriously, classified. Nor is it difficult to identify which blogs are classified for commercial content vs non commercial content.

Blogs not written in English will present some challenge.
Blogs which are not written in English, however, are going to be a challenge - both in the initial forum problem discussion triage, and the later Blogger Policy Review final review.

Identifying the blog subject requires familiarity with the blog language, and with the blog subject. And identifying scraped / syndicated content, or reviewing for "objectionable" content, requires ability to at least read the content - then to run the content through Google Search, possibly in multiple languages.

Google will have even more of a challenge, with non English blogs.
Google can automate much of the initial abuse classification - in every language. Blogs which later require manual review will require a human being to sort through the content - and the human will need language and subject familiarity.

As the automated abuse / objectionable content classification process becomes more reliable, some blogs will require manual review after they are classified (righteously, or spuriously), for more subtle content / TOS violations. All of this creates demands, when review is needed.

  • Ability to judge abuse / content, in general.
  • Ability to judge abuse / content, in subtle details.
  • Familiarity with the blog language.
  • Familiarity with the blog subject / cultural issues.
  • Diversity and size of the blog.

All of these details will be relevant, when answering the question, asked by many blog owners.
How long will I have to wait, before my blog is restored / reviewed?
Some blog owners will wait, with eventual reward; and others may wait forever. And the owners of blogs published in obscure non English languages / relevant to non mainstream cultures will wait longer, as Google expands the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Blogger Policy Review team, to reflect world diversity.

Spammer activity will follow cultural / linguistic diversity, in Blogger.
There are over 300 languages in the world, with Blogger currently supporting 62 languages in the dashboard Language setting. As Blogger expands its linguistic diversity, spammer activity will surely follow.

Spammers will both conceal abusive activity, and target victims, using blogs published in obscure languages. It's possible that blogs published in obscure languages will be less subject to spam classification processes.

The Blogger Policy Review team will have to expand, similarly - if they hope to reliably support requested spam review, using human beings. And as Blogger blogs become more popular in countries where English is not common, blog owners have to be more patient, when their blogs are (righteously, or spuriously) classified as objectionable content / suspected spam hosts.

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