On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:06:49 -0500, Cary Bass cbass@wikimedia.org wrote:
In hindsight (and having spoken to the user on the phone) he has a limited command of English. A short duration block while some explaining on the talk page would have been the proper response. It doesn't mean that the user is worth having on Wikipedia--but I do know of several individuals who started out as spammers and turned into good contributors.
Stephen B. Streater being an example - but he wasn't a *spammer* as such, just a reasonably notable individual writing about his own endeavours.
I would not like to speculate on the ratio of genuine spammers to well-intentioned people with poor command of English. I suspect that those who add only links are more likely to be evil spammers.
Guy (JzG)