Post Spamming

[arn]

Please do NOT post simply to increase your post count.

Typically there are no warnings, and accounts will be shut down, sacrificing all posts.

arn

[janey]

arn can you please just ban kwyjibo and let us continue our great thread on the definition of a geek?

[vniow]

Yeah, I say bring that thread back, Wastelanding it was a bit excessive, it was ours, not that spammer's.

[janey]

and our thread isn't exactly what you'd call off topic...we were talking about one aspect of a geek: sexuality ;)

[eyelikeart]

this warning has to be brought back from time to time...there's always someone new who comes around and wants to stir some ***** up "upping" his/her postcount...

remember too...we can simply delete those useless posts when they victimize a good thread... ;)

[howard]

yeah i saw that guy creat a thread and just post things like: aoiefjoej and civoiwf to increase his account....that was really bad. I'm glad people who do that get kicked. it really ruins the whole forum experience

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by vniow
Yeah, I say bring that thread back, Wastelanding it was a bit excessive, it was ours, not that spammer's.

are you sure you all aren't spammers? hmmm ;)

[King Cobra]

>are you sure you all aren't spammers? hmmm ;)

Are you sure you weren't the one with the most posts in 24 hours, over 200 posts? :p

I immediately decided to report the thread when I first saw it (before Mr. and Ms. Spam took notice). That's all that needs to be done.

[eyelikeart]

Originally posted by King Cobra
I immediately decided to report the thread when I first saw it (before Mr. and Ms. Spam took notice). That's all that needs to be done.

ahem...contrary to popular belief...

that's "Mr. Spam" to u...thank u very much... ;)

[vniow]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
ahem...contrary to popular belief...

that's "Mr. Spam" to u...thank u very much... ;)


Someone challenging me for Ms. Spam status?

CATFIGHT!!

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by King Cobra
Are you sure you weren't the one with the most posts in 24 hours, over 200 posts? :p


"spam" is different from "many posts". keep that tongue in please. ;)

[job]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
ahem...contrary to popular belief...

that's "Mr. Spam" to u...thank u very much... ;)

ahh...

so there's a second mr. spam in town? :confused: ;) :eek:

[King Cobra]

But, eye, hitman has already been proclaimed the title "Mr. Spam". If you are willing to try out for Ms. Spam (shouldn't be too hard, you are the winner of the Macrumors Babe Contest II), go for it. Just watch out for Ms. V...

>keep that tongue in please. ;)

Jello, get a look at my teeth! :D

[-hh]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
this warning has to be brought back from time to time...there's always someone new who comes around and wants to stir some ***** up "upping" his/her postcount...



As best as I've been able to figure out, the only really "useful" reason to try to boost your postcount is to get an Avatar.

Considering that the threshhold for an Avatar is 500 posts, and apparently no metric for "months that he's been participating" (that I know of), the website is effectively encouraging people who want an Avatar to post a lot of noise one way or another, which will by definition sacrifice some signal quality.


A personal "Case in point": I wouldn't mind having an Avatar, but I've posted only ~75 times within the past (not quite) two years. At my current rate of posting, I won't be eligible for an Avatar until September 2013!

I'm sorry, but do you want to give Avatars to people who provide quality postings, or just those who just post a lot (quantity)?. When we look at the quality-vs-quantity arguement from a Mac-vs-PC standpoint, Mac = quality, so its a bit heretical to suggest that a Mac website should do the opposite.

FWIW, my personal suggestion would be to consider amending the Avatar rules to reduce the motivation of creating fluff posts. For example, the policy (and clearly documented) could be that no one gets to have one until they've been a registered member & participant for at least XX months, plus have a YY postcount.

YMMV for what value you want to use for "XX", but I'd suggest something between 10-20 months. This does assume, of course, that the website's software can easily facilitate such a change.

Just my $.02,

-hh

[King Cobra]

The issue of how and when to distribute allowance to avatars has already been discussed to death. So it comes down to this, as duke mentioned in such a discussion:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[beez7777]

the sudden mass posting so one can get an avatar is really, annoying, and being only 15 or so posts away from one myself, i've been trying really hard not to make any completely useless. posts. all mass posting does is piss people off, and what good is a tar if everyone at the boards hates you?

[howard]

well said beez7777 i can't wait to see your avatar. sadly i'm about 200 posts away..and i already have my avatar made!! but i have also just been posting normally

[rainman::|:|]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
...wants to stir some ***** up "upping" his/her postcount...

now hold on there moderator, isn't there a rule about defeating the word filter?

:D
hehe

pnw

[eyelikeart]

hmm...touché... ;)

so I should just retain myself as "Ms MacRumors 2002" and forget about being "Mr. Spam"... :eek:

I agree on relevant posting vs. boosting postcounts for avatars...but this is a classic debate which I'm not even touching again... :rolleyes:

and yes I did sorta get around the filter...but I've been doing it for 2 years now and no one has slapped me for it...yet... ;)

did I miss any other points?

[WinterMute]

Originally posted by paulwhannel
now hold on there moderator, isn't there a rule about defeating the word filter?

:D
hehe

pnw

er... is there a rule about defeating the word filter, I thought it was just politeness and concern for minors, I've been doing it since I got here, should I stop and let the filter take over?

[Sun Baked]

Sometime back around the time of the Redneck thread ...

Originally posted by arn (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?threadid=9758)
There's a word censor for a reason.

The only reason to try to get around it is to make my life more difficult.

Please don't make my life more difficult.

arn

[arn]

Originally posted by WinterMute
er... is there a rule about defeating the word filter, I thought it was just politeness and concern for minors, I've been doing it since I got here, should I stop and let the filter take over?

avoiding means using alternate letters, foreign letters, graphics etc...

For example if "funny" was a censored word, using "fvnny" would be frowned upon.

*-ing out parts hasn't been a big problem.

arn

[arn]

Originally posted by -hh

I'm sorry, but do you want to give Avatars to people who provide quality postings, or just those who just post a lot (quantity)?. When we look at the quality-vs-quantity arguement from a Mac-vs-PC standpoint, Mac = quality, so its a bit heretical to suggest that a Mac website should do the opposite.

For what it's worth... I agree with you.

If I had known the troubles the avatars would cause.... I would have not activated them at all.

The problem with quality vs quanitity is that it's very difficult to assess quality objectively. It would become a full time job to figure out which users are posting quality posts etc...

Every now and again, I think of limiting Avatars to a certain subgroup (contributers) or maybe stop allowing new people to get avatars. But I figure it will cause a revolt of sorts. :)

arn

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by arn

Every now and again, I think of limiting Avatars to a certain subgroup (contributers) or maybe stop allowing new people to get avatars. But I figure it will cause a revolt of sorts. :)


i think revolts would be good... weed out the people who truly are just posting to get avatars and those who have something semi-useful to say

let em start infighting and kill each other off! ;)

[janey]

Originally posted by howard
yeah i saw that guy creat a thread and just post things like: aoiefjoej and civoiwf to increase his account....that was really bad. I'm glad people who do that get kicked. it really ruins the whole forum experience
that was kwyjibo...he still didn't get kicked off, but his post count dimished after what he did :) not a macrumors regular anymore lol

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by arn
Every now and again, I think of limiting Avatars to a certain subgroup (contributers) or maybe stop allowing new people to get avatars. But I figure it will cause a revolt of sorts. :)

arn
All this crap about post count and avatars is so funny. It's very sad to think that people have nothing other to worry about other than how many posts they have on MR and if they have enough to qualify them for a 'tar, pathetic! :rolleyes:
IMO those that are here because they enjoy the feeling of community wouldn't give a hoot if 'tars were taken away. Don't get me wrong, I want them to stay, it helps identify each user and so on. But at the same time it would hardly be the end of my world if they were taken away :)

[Steradian]

When i first started posting here, post counts were one very important thing to me because I really wanted people to respect my somewhat limited knowledge about the mac platform by seeing a tar or a large post count, I mean when i see something written by someone with a tar I generally take thier advice a bit more seriously(sp?) than others. Well things change and ever since arn got rid of the post count thingy above or below? the register date I have come to realize that people should respect the people with tars as well as the people who are generaly trying to help others out. I made a firm decision(sp?) after the post counts were lifted that I would donate some money to arn to be a demi ONLY after I had earned a tar with helpful and intuitive posts... This summer i hope to really make an impression w/ the MR community by devoting an extend amount of time in the boards..ok i have 'said' enough for tonight... and if that makes me pathetic than I guess I am

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by jelloshotsrule
i think revolts would be good... weed out the people who truly are just posting to get avatars and those who have something semi-useful to say

let em start infighting and kill each other off! ;)
*stabs*
OKAY WHO IS NEXT? ;)

Nah. Spamming = Bad.

I took the time to write my posts I think that they are all worth quality and not spaming.

Look at me on other boards I have a avatar that looks good but some restrictions on size and width-height happen and I'm left with the : D smiley. :(

[rainman::|:|]

(i was kidding by the way... i'm not that big of a d*ck...)

:D :p
pnw

[eyelikeart]

I think the bottom line is there will always be someone who's gonna make those attempts to try and get ahead...and we're always gonna look at them and try to prevent it from getting out of hand...

it's a cat & mouse game... :rolleyes:

sadly enough though...sometimes the best way to ensure something from getting too out of hand is pulling the plug...

just my opinion...

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
I think the bottom line is there will always be someone who's gonna make those attempts to try and get ahead...and we're always gonna look at them and try to prevent it from getting out of hand...

it's a cat & mouse game... :rolleyes:

sadly enough though...sometimes the best way to ensure something from getting too out of hand is pulling the plug...

just my opinion...

'I'll just bend the rules a little bit further... *SNAP*, oh damn.'
;)

[MacFan25]

Originally posted by eyelikeart
sadly enough though...sometimes the best way to ensure something from getting too out of hand is pulling the plug...
Yes, I have to agree with you. People who are just here to spam, should be banned. No body likes to see spam on the boards.

[howard]

i havn't seen TOO much spam on these boards in the few months that i've been here. it does kinda depend on what you think of as spam...like the geek thread for example...is any of it really important? well not to a lot but the people who post on that thread are having a lot of fun and i don't think any of them are posting to increase there count, so i wouldn't necesarily count that as spam. anyway I'm personally glad that you have to work for an avatar, if you do just that and not spam. However if it would be easier for arn and better for the forum would it be better to just let everyone have avatars?

[WinterMute]

Originally posted by arn
avoiding means using alternate letters, foreign letters, graphics etc...

For example if "funny" was a censored word, using "fvnny" would be frowned upon.

*-ing out parts hasn't been a big problem.

arn

Right, cool, thanks arn.

I think the avatar situation is a self-policing problem, if anyone spams enough to get an avatar, they'll soon get bored once it's achieved and you'll not see them much again. Besides, that's a lot of spam to get past the group in general isn't it?

Serial spammers could be sin-binned for a month, is that possible?

[Squire]

Please excuse my stupidity, but I'm new to this forum stuff.

Ummm...what's an Avatar? At first, I thought it was one of those cool little pictures but then somebody said, "I don't have one," but he had a picture.

Confused.

Squire

[FredAkbar]

Originally posted by Squire
Please excuse my stupidity, but I'm new to this forum stuff.

Ummm...what's an Avatar? At first, I thought it was one of those cool little pictures but then somebody said, "I don't have one," but he had a picture.

Confused.

Squire

I didn't see the thing you mentioned about a person with a picture who said they didn't have an Avatar, so I don't know about that, but I'm pretty positive that an Avatar is what you thought it is--that little pic below a user's screen name on these boards. (Someone please correct me if I am in fact mistaken.)

--Fred

[Doctor Q]

Right, it's the picture at the left. The reason you might see a post with an Avatar next to a comment saying "I don't have an Avatar yet" is that once you get it, all your posts, even those made earlier, are shown with the Avatar.

The same type of confusion can happen with a signature, shown at the bottom of a post. If you set or change your signature, it affects all posts past and present. So sometimes an old comment about somebody's signature won't make sense anymore.

[janey]

Originally posted by Doctor Q
Right, it's the picture at the left. The reason you might see a post with an Avatar next to a comment saying "I don't have an Avatar yet" is that once you get it, all your posts, even those made earlier, are shown with the Avatar.

The same type of confusion can happen with a signature, shown at the bottom of a post. If you set or change your signature, it affects all posts past and present. So sometimes an old comment about somebody's signature won't make sense anymore.
that's so weird because the posts you originally made as a newbie have avatars and stuff ;)