Spamming and Post Count ZEROing

**CocoPops** · 13-11-2003, 04:09 PM

Right,

There is still too much spamming going on by people desperate to get into the For Sale forums.

It has to stop.....NOW.

Hexus Admins CAN and WILL reduce your post counts to ZERO if we believe you to be spamming unecessarily.

I have already ZERO'd one user account today, don't encourage me to do it again.

Thanks,

Lee.

Private_mojo · 13-11-2003, 04:36 PM

lo Coco,

can I just ask what is considered spam so I know not to do it?

I am a member of a forum which suffered serious spam attacks! Like people who posted about 20 times with "bickc***" repeatadly.

Now that was obvious spam, but the not so obvious spam is just as annoying.

**CocoPops** · 13-11-2003, 04:44 PM

When someone posts:-

"Oh yeah"

"What a waste"

"That's well cheap"

Or other equally pointless posts in reply to someone's thread. Like my Grandad once said:

"If you haven't got anything worth saying, don't say anything at all"

Zaphan58 · 13-11-2003, 06:54 PM

I think hexus should implement something similar to what another forum I visit does. They have dedicated mods that keep an eye out for spammers, if one is found they are banned from the classifieds as simple as that. Now I dont post on this forum much but I do read it several times a day almost everyday, if I spot any spammers I will shoot a PM to a mod to bring it to there attention and they can do what they will.

Private_mojo · 13-11-2003, 06:56 PM

Maybe more mods are needed to sort spam out? The more mods there are, the higher the chance that somebody will be online at the time of spamming and will be able to eradicate the post.

Enverex · 13-11-2003, 07:08 PM

Thats true. The amount of time that those other idiots ran rampant and spammed the living ****e out of the forums was quite a while, which shows there are some periods in time where there are quite large periods of time with no mods on (that or they were busy doing something else...).

NS

Grolschkid · 13-11-2003, 07:14 PM

You will probably think i am spamming right now, which i am not, its just so annoying reading all the people who have post counts above say 150 that seem to think that all noobs to the site are blatant spammers, when in fact they probably are not ( me included ) sorry about the rant before I was just trying to get my point across. I know you admins must have a tough job of what spam and what isnt, but i think you should chill a bit, odds on that most people use your site as a good guide in the upgrading and modding side ( i know i do ) rather than trying to buy or sell anything.

Zaphan58 · 13-11-2003, 07:19 PM

Originally posted by Grolschkid
You will probably think i am spamming right now, which i am not, its just so annoying reading all the people who have post counts above say 150 that seem to think that all noobs to the site are blatant spammers, when in fact they probably are not ( me included ) sorry about the rant before I was just trying to get my point across. I know you admins must have a tough job of what spam and what isnt, but i think you should chill a bit, odds on that most people use your site as a good guide in the upgrading and modding side ( i know i do ) rather than trying to buy or sell anything.

Theres nothing wrong with posting a lot if your new or if your not it doesnt matter, its one thing to ask a lot of questions witch IMHO is perfectly fine. What hexus is trying to rule out it blatent 2 word posts, witch is wrong.

Maffu · 13-11-2003, 07:26 PM

Fantastic. Two of my posts have been deleted from this thread without telling me? Way to go.

Power to the people.

**CocoPops** · 13-11-2003, 07:45 PM

Because Maffu, they had no point other than to start an arguement.

Like I said, if you haven't got anything decent to say...

Maffu · 13-11-2003, 08:12 PM

Woah. Step back a second. I wanted to discuss the point. I was pointing out that there is a SPAM sticky and two SPAM threads when I logged on today.

Life's too short to argue about the unimportant things. Spam is one of those. Mind you, you'll probably delete this one.

You need to define 'decent' if you're going to use that line to all the members know what, and what not is acceptable.

Yosh · 13-11-2003, 08:17 PM

Maffu

Imagine if my anwser to your post was "Good point"

Thats spam.

Now, if i went onto explain why i thought your post was good then it wouldnt be classified as blatant spam.

Maffu · 13-11-2003, 08:44 PM

So, one liners no. Paragraphs yes?

Again, not arguing, just clarifying.

**Saracen** · 13-11-2003, 09:08 PM

Originally posted by Maffu
Woah. Step back a second. I wanted to discuss the point. I was pointing out that there is a SPAM sticky and two SPAM threads when I logged on today.

Life's too short to argue about the unimportant things. Spam is one of those. Mind you, you'll probably delete this one.

You need to define 'decent' if you're going to use that line to all the members know what, and what not is acceptable.

So far as I'm concerned, it's not easy to define.

The best I could do is a short (or very short) post which adds nothing to the thread. That is not to say any short post is spam. A post with one or two words might add to the thread, and might even provide an answer to a specific question, so the content of the post is also relevant to the classification of spam, not just the length.

Also, an odd SPAM post here or there will usually get ignored. I suspect we've all done it. This is not a campaign to eradicate every list single spam post - it is a campaign to eradicate spamming spree's. The exception to that is probably Question Time, where I do actively discourage chit-chat in discussion threads. QT is, after all, about debate, not chit-chat.

We have had a LOT of people who will post 30, 40 even 50 times ina short period: a day, even an hour. Then, on hitting 50 posts, the frantic posting stops and posting on For Sale starts. THAT is what will get your post count zeroed.

We have a 50 post-rule for access to For Sale for good reason. It helps ensure that anyone using that facility is actually a contributing member of the forums, and it helps keep rip-off artists out. We don't pretend this is enough on it's own for that last point, or even that we can guarantee to do it at all, but it helps.

Now, someone who goes on a deliberate spamming spree to 50 posts, and THEN stops spamming and starts posting in For Sale/Trading is not only flouting the No Spam rule (and quite clearly not caring if they irritate a lot of other members in the process), but they are also QUITE DELIBERATELY attempting to bypass the whole reason the 50-post rule is there in the first place.

Hence the zeroing of post counts. And after all, if you've spammed your way to 50, then the 'posts' that you've lost the Pount Count for are hardly much of a contribution. It's not just that these are spam posts, it's that they are a deliberate attempt to bypass the rules. It is effectively 'flipping the bird' at the people that set the rules. That is not much appreciated

Now, time was that I'd go through these spam posts one by one, removing anything that was spam and leaving anything that was half-decent. The problem is, it takes about an hour at a time to do that. Why should I (or the other admin’s) waste large amounts of our spare time treating with such consideration anyone that has gone to such trouble to bypass the rules?

After all, we're all volunteers and we all have home lives. I rather resent wasting large parts of my spare time simply because some people cannot show all the other members here some respect and not spam all over the place. Bear in mind, I'm talking sprees not individual spam posts?

Hence the current attitude. Anyone that goes on such a spamming spree to get access to FS/T gets their Post Count zeroed. My time wasted - about 30 seconds. Anyone that does it a second time will get locked out of FS/T - probably permanently - my time wasted, probably another 30 seconds.

A lot of people question this approach - as indeed you have done. I have no problem with that. Most people are reasonable enough to understand and accept what we do once they know why we do it, even if they still don't entirely agree.

But at the end of the day, it comes down to the admins being fed up with wasting lots of their time because people won't follow a simple rule that is designed to be of benefit to all our members. It might sound arrogant, and isn't meant to be, but I place sufficient value on my spare time that I won't have it wasted like that, and that therefore, as long as I'm on the admin team here, that will be the way I deal with serial spammers (not that it was me this time, but I'd have done the same had I got to it first).

I hope that helps you understand what we mean by spam, and why we do what we do.

**Saracen** · 13-11-2003, 09:09 PM

Originally posted by Maffu
So, one liners no. Paragraphs yes?

Again, not arguing, just clarifying.

Not necessarily. See my post above, which overlapped yours. It's as much about content as length. A one-liner could be perfectly valid, depending on what it says.

blockers · 13-11-2003, 09:09 PM

www.webopedia.com -> tried to find a spam definition:

Some people define spam even more generally as any unsolicited e-mail

also goes on to say:

In addition to wasting people's time with unwanted e-mail, spam also eats up a lot of network bandwidth

is what is more going on here. and why people get annoyed with it.

Will

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