FreeIpods Spam Flooding In

[Sun Baked]

Does flyertalk forums now point to MacRumors.com as the prime real estate for getting your free ipods?

Seems there are quite a few of them popping up over here.

Almost seems like we are getting ready for a flood of these people asking you to sign up to get THEM an iPod.

This free ipod stuff could get ugly real quick.

 

[PlaceofDis]

im gald that the mods are stepping in and not allowing this to continue, after all this is not what these forums are about....

 

[MacDawg]

It is out of control... and the mods can't even keep up with the flood. I was amazed at all of the posts today.

I guess they are going to have to ban folks right and left to get a handle on it.

 

[King Cobra]

I actually posted about something very similar [elsewhere], but I think what needs to be done is enforce self-promotion/advertising, or free spam/referral site policies, as well as make users more aware that such activities aren't allowed. I seriously recommend that any user that engages in obvious self-promotion/advertising be banned, as well as repeat offenders, and that anyone that unknowingly does so receive a notice through PM reminding the user that such activities aren't allowed. Basically, instead of the harsh warnings, it's either a reminder through PM, or an instant banning.

For some reason, the iPod referral things aren't too annoying to me...

 

[MacFan25]

I had to report this person today after I saw that all of his posts were advertising for other websites. The mods handled it well, and immediatley banned him.

Do some people really think that advertising in a forum like this is effective?

 

[King Cobra]

I think that they think that they can get away with it, being that this is one of the largest Mac forums out there, other than the Apple forums (I think) and SpyMac. And, guess what! People that come to the forums to advertise most likely won't give up until they either can't access it, or until they receive a rather informative legal notice.

 

[Sun Baked]

This could get ugly, even if it's simply a plain pyramid scheme (hopefully it's not more), or a marketing campaign to draw suckers into a monthly credit card bill as they increasingly find it difficult to cancel out on the trial offer (hint, Girls Gone Wild.)

Would be nice to see an administrative blurb to stop it.

---

Now if the person who set this crap up had a devious criminal mind (which I "almost" hope he does) this is (or is not) a front for a rather large credit card skimming operation.

Get the credit card/debit cards and all the billing and personal info, send out a several thousand iPods, and then one day start the machinery to steal a bunch of money off the credit cards.

Kenneth Taves, of Malibu, made $37 million dollars skimming money off credit cards ($19.95 per month), so the incentive is BIG. And so was the victim list 900,000 people.

Ooops, sorry we didn't mean to bill you -- we'll cancel you today....

What do you mean you were billed again, and again....

 

[Doctor Q]

Thanks for helping out, everyone. Please keep reporting 'em when and where you see 'em.

 

[themadchemist]

While this needs to stop, I don't want us to get too heavy-handed. While some self-promotion is undesirable, I still want people to be able to share with us their personal websites, mac-related or not, because we are a community and I think a lot of us take great pleasure in enjoying the creative pursuits of our fellow members.

 

[King Cobra]

There's a difference between sharing personal websites and basically spamming the boards with mentions of them. When one's website is about self-promotion or attempts to make a profit, and then the person running the website tries to bring people over to his/her site to make that profit, that's not allowed. Also, when people take a topic like this and then redirect it like such -- Example: "...also I just updated my site check it out" -- that can be annoying. Personal site sharing, on the other hand, can be done in the Web Development section. By personal sites, I'm implying that the site is not for ad./profit purposes.

Oh, and my website is completely PC-pro - just kidding.

 

[themadchemist]

There's a difference between sharing personal websites and basically spamming the boards with mentions of them. When one's website is about self-promotion or attempts to make a profit, and then the person running the website tries to bring people over to his/her site to make that profit, that's not allowed. Also, when people take a topic like this and then redirect it like such -- Example: "...also I just updated my site check it out" -- that can be annoying. Personal site sharing, on the other hand, can be done in the Web Development section. By personal sites, I'm implying that the site is not for ad./profit purposes.

Oh, and my website is completely PC-pro - just kidding.

fair enough

 

[Sun Baked]

I see the mods are finally getting tired of cleaning up the FreeiPod mess.

No freeipods announcement at the top of all the forums

Hopefully this will help clean it up here, but from the sounds of it -- it's taking on virus levels on other sites and eBay.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Along with these free iPod postings, I have issue with a newbie that signs up and the only postings to the forums is for things being sold.

I wish we had the rule that another board I am on has; No eBay Listings! If you want to sell member to member, that is OK.

 

[NusuniAdmin]

Some fool on yahoo chat in the macintosh room keeps posting free ipod crap...so annoying.

 

[themadchemist]

Some fool on yahoo chat in the macintosh room keeps posting free ipod crap...so annoying.

What does that tell you?

...Don't go to yahoo chat.

If you go to chatrooms like that, what more can you expect? 25% of the posts are spam, 25% of the posts are by child molesters, 49% of the posts are by hax0rz teenagers, and 1% of the posts are by intelligent people like you.

Steer clear of the idiot fests and spend your time in places like MacRumors where a little bit of moderation and a lot of mature, intelligent people make the experience a lot more enjoyable.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

What does that tell you?

...Don't go to yahoo chat.

If you go to chatrooms like that, what more can you expect? 25% of the posts are spam, 25% of the posts are by child molesters, 49% of the posts are by hax0rz teenagers, and 1% of the posts are by intelligent people like you.

Steer clear of the idiot fests and spend your time in places like MacRumors where a little bit of moderation and a lot of mature, intelligent people make the experience a lot more enjoyable.

I think your post was meant as sarcasim. But if not may you should provide some stats on the claims you make in your comments

 

[themadchemist]

I think your post was meant as sarcasim. But if not may you should provide some stats on the claims you make in your comments

A mixture of sarcasm and just being out of it...I posted this after an MCAT practice test and it's kind of a dumb post in retrospect.

edit: On the other hand, despite the obviously fabricated statistics and the fair measure of facetious dialogue, I think there's some truth to my previous post. From what I have qualitatively observed, chatrooms on AOL/Yahoo tend to be problematic. Firstly, the prospect of 30 to 60 people all trying to discuss a variety of topics simultaneously does not bode well for establishing intelligent discourse. Secondly, I have personally noticed that a lot of the people involved tend not to add to the discussion with the most polished or interesting of opinions. Yes, that's just my take on it, but opinion does not necessarily invalidate observation. Thirdly, even if a person does have something useful to say, there's no way that it can be truly elaborated on or discussed thoroughly both because of the fast-pace of 60 people trying to talk real-time and because of the input format that prevents extended comments in paragraph form. Remember, long messages often take so long to type that one finally enters them twenty or thirty messages after the message to which they are responding, making the post seem verbose and irrelevant. Fourthly, and perhaps most annoyingly, even this scrap of coherent discussion is punctuated by the incessant spam by advertisers of usually less-than-wholesome sites.

Compared to MacRumors, these chat rooms simply don't hold up, in my opinion. MacRumors and other forum-based sites allow more thoughtful discussion over a longer period and this community in particular seems to have a brighter, more progressive group of posters than others, especially those in the chatroom format (which also tend to exhibit a greater degree of transience because of the multiplicity of "rooms" on a particular topic within the framework of a particular chat community). Given the other poster's comment about spam appearing in these chatrooms, mine served both to express my chagrin with respect to chatting in those rooms and my belief that the ratio of spam to non-spam posts is much higher in chat rooms than it is at MacRumors. Given the large volume of posts here, the relatively limited amount of spam, and the fact that moderators do a respectable job of keeping the forums clear of spammers as they enter, I think that my presumption that there are more spammers in chat rooms like those at Yahoo is not much of a leap of faith.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

I know what you mean, but the stats provided gave a distorted impression. And that was where I was coming from. There is a forum that I am on, but the moderation is very lax. On that forum, I do find myself trying to uphold the standards that have been put into place here. Some times I am lost there, but there is a satisfaction in knowing that my words are much more on target than the ranting that is allowed.

 

[themadchemist]

I know what you mean, but the stats provided gave a distorted impression. And that was where I was coming from. There is a forum that I am on, but the moderation is very lax. On that forum, I do find myself trying to uphold the standards that have been put into place here. Some times I am lost there, but there is a satisfaction in knowing that my words are much more on target than the ranting that is allowed.

That's fair enough. It's nice for one to know that he's following some standard of principle, but those who don't still detract from the experience after a while.

But yes, my stats were totally, absolutely contrived to make a qualitative point.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

That's fair enough. It's nice for one to know that he's following some standard of principle, but those who don't still detract from the experience after a while.

But yes, my stats were totally, absolutely contrived to make a qualitative point.

Forgive me, there are those that will never read past what you wrote. When you mention a pedophile, there are those that will think Gay (despite the evidence from what I have read) . And that is where I drew the line from your comments.

I think this is one of the reasons for the rules here to make sure that the facts are well supported, or if it is opinion, or unfounded facts.

 

[themadchemist]

Forgive me, there are those that will never read past what you wrote. When you mention a pedophile, there are those that will think Gay (despite the evidence from what I have read) . And that is where I drew the line from your comments.

I think this is one of the reasons for the rules here to make sure that the facts are well supported, or if it is opinion, or unfounded facts.

Hm, I see where you're coming from. I didn't even see that angle on it; I think I better understand your insistence.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Thought that the free iPod google ads were to go bye bye.

 

[themadchemist]

Thought that the free iPod google ads were to go bye bye.

were they? I mentioned them in another thread, but neither the mods nor arn had a chance to respond there. Did they say they would nix 'em somewhere else?

 

[musicpyrite]

Grrrr.....

It is out of control... and the mods can't even keep up with the flood. I was amazed at all of the posts today.

I guess they are going to have to ban folks right and left to get a handle on it.

Yea, they mods can't keep up with it because they are the ones putting on the site!!!!!

(although I do respect the fact that this is arn's site, and he can do with it what he whats, and put on it what he chooses, I was just going for the ironic part )

 

[King Cobra]

For some reason Fightclub comes to mind. You know it exists, but you can't talk about it.