On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:06:49 -0500, Cary Bass <cbass(a)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)
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG