What's wrong with spam?

[ybbor]

read it all

the first thing we need to do is take a look at what i actually said. i did not say "what's worng with flaming?" or "what's wrong with trolling?" or even "what's wrong with French bashing?" most of the sapm in CFC is none of those, and most spam is usually funny. spam makes the world a little lighter, and keeps the tone of the conversation down. and really, it's not hurting anyone. i propose we lighten our standards on spam where we won't get as many thread closing, but more moderator warnings. i'm not saying spam to your hearts content, but a little bit of spam here or there never hurt anyone, now if it gets to the point where almost an entire page is spam-filled, we should clsoe it down. now right now 3 things are going through your minds, 1)but it's against the forum rules!- not if we change them to say "excessive spam" 2)it clutters up threads nd makes them harder to read!- only if your the kind of person who doesn't like to laugh a bit online, and 3) where di i put the remote?- over there

 

[Moss]

The only problem I have with spam is that it causes the forum to lose control and also causes the forum to lose it's sense of structure and creative base. Spam has a tendency to make people go off-topic and also has a tendency to decrease the intelligence level of the people who are reading the posts. When one person spams you really don't notice, but when 100 people spam, it gets annoying. Reading through posts that make no, or little sense, is just not what people come to this forum to do.

 

[ainwood]

i'm not saying spam to your hearts content, but a little bit of spam here or there never hurt anyone, now if it gets to the point where almost an entire page is spam-filled, we should clsoe it down. now right now 3 things are going through your minds, 1)but it's against the forum rules!- not if we change them to say "excessive spam" 2)it clutters up threads nd makes them harder to read!- only if your the kind of person who doesn't like to laugh a bit online, and 3) where di i put the remote?- over there

Go have a bit of a look at forums where spam is encouraged. It is amusing for all of about 5 minutes. Even the 'humourous' spam gets lost in the spam.


Spam tolerance has lightened up over the last 12 - 18 months, but even spam has to be on-topic. This is the main problem that I have with spam is that if you allow it, suddenly people seem to think that threadjacking is acceptable, and it becomes nigh-on impossible to actually have a thread about a serious topic at all. If you asked a question about best attacking untis (this is a civ forum, remember ), would you want to wade-through 30 spammy posts to find a helpful response? To keep spam-friendly forums on-topic would make modding a nightmare. I think we have the balance about right now.

 

[ybbor]

would you want to wade-through 30 spammy posts to find a helpful response?

no, that's why i said something to that effect in my argument

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Basicly clutter, either within a tread or on the topic page of forum. Cluttering a thread is almost never appreciated, and cluttering and tolerance for cluttering a topic page threads decreases with the inverse of poster population. When there were only a few dozen active posters, OT was allowed much leeway on spam threads.
Also here, the owner has a limited tolerance for spam clutter, and does not enjoy encountering it. It bores the heck out him to wade through it. That is a common enough preference for site owners from what I have observed; I might hazard a guess that running websites (at least ones that work) tends to attract a more orderly spectrun that the general internet user.

 

[MarineCorps]

Spam tolerance has lightened up over the last 12 - 18 months,

Hmm, thats about the time I joined up.

This is the main problem that I have with spam is that if you allow it, suddenly people seem to think that threadjacking is acceptable,

I got myself a warning on that the other week.

 

[superslug]

i'm not saying spam to your hearts content, but a little bit of spam here or there never hurt anyone,

Never? Never hurt anyone? Maybe not the spam itself, but the spammers can occasionally get hurt.

 

[MarineCorps]

Intresting how our minds know what the last word in the thread title is. sapm

 

[superslug]

Intresting how our minds know what the last word in the thread title is. sapm

Sotp taht rghit now msteir!

 

[LLXerxes]

Sotp taht rghit now msteir!

Dude, slow down when your typing.
Unless it is a spammyjoke.

 

[superslug]

Teerh's nthnoig wnorg wtih my tipyng. I'm jsut satying wtih the therad tlite. I'ts the rset of you taht are sapmming.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

How annoying... A thread on spam turned spammy...

On-topic, what ainwood and Lefty said.

 

[Moss]

How annoying... A thread on spam turned spammy...

On-topic, what ainwood and Lefty said.

You know that would happen when the title of the thread wasn't even spelled correctly.

 

[Perfection]

Here's my philosophy on spam, an occasional zing spam or pun spam I will post, but when it starts going back and forth and detracting from the point I'll stop (unless the topic was obviously excruciatingly lame, like that poll about the brick vs. stone)

Postcount +1!

 

[The Last Conformist]

[mandatory +1 post]

I'm surprised no-one's mentioned server resources yet. On certain other fora I frequent, that's the first thing levelled at folks who suggest a light line should be taken on spam. Is it not an issue?

@XIII: All threads in SF turn spammy.

 

[nonconformist]

Postcount +1!

Hey, that's my phrase!

Anyway, I don't mind "intelligent" spam, parodying(is that a word?) the thread "craze"; for example the "What if Azerbaijan invaded Turkmenistan?" thread. he "What is your favourite colour" ones are just lame.

Post count plus one.

 

[MarineCorps]

@XIII: All threads in SF turn spammy.

Intresting that he hasn't learned that yet . Maybe TF should replace him with me.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Either, he indeed hasn't learned, or, as I'm starting to suspect, he's discovered his own spamming niche, which is camouflaged well enough to fool TF.

 

[Thunderfall]

[mandatory +1 post]
@XIII: All threads in SF turn spammy.

Everyone can see that spam in Site Feedback is usually posted by the same 4 or 5 posters. Banning them from Site Feedback, at least temporarily, would do much to help the problem here...

I think that's what I will do next...

 

[Padma]

An apt solution, TF!