Your take on "soft spam"

harishankar · Posted: 4/16/2006, 8:46 am Post subject: Your take on "soft spam"

What do you think about soft-spamming members?

When I say that, I mean not the regular one-post and disappear spammers who are easy to deal with, but people who would otherwise contribute usefully to your forum but are intent on promoting themselves as well. Mostly this is not commercial spam, but they have a habit of "signing" their website on all their posts and otherwise appear to want a lot of attention to themselves?

I mean, if such a member joins my forum, I would allow them within reasonable limits, so long as they didn't spam for the sake of spamming and contributed usefully as a member. But it can be hard to draw the line and you could lose risking a member if you admonish them.

So how would you deal with such members?
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~HG~ · Posted: 4/16/2006, 2:58 pm Post subject:

I dont have a problem with "competition" ... in fact I have had a number of members start their own forums and provided they are not direct takes of mine, I have even helped them kick start their projects.
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Patrick · Administrator

Yeah, it's not easy and it can be difficult. But, I've always placed the community/the goals/vision for the community above any member or members. I don't have a problem with competition, either, but at the same time... my sites don't exist to promote other sites. If someone wants to promote their site, they can pay for advertising. All sites are different, some don't care anything about making money or about advertising and allow people to post whatever links. Everyone is different. As far as me, links in signatures, introductions (as long as the whole purpose of the introduction isn't your website) are fine and encouraged. Rare links to your own site to specific pages where a question that is asked is specifically answered is fine, even, but other than that, that's about it.

All in all, I'm pretty strict on advertising. I don't care if it's commercial, personal, non profit, etc. If anyone signs off with their site in their posts, I ask them to add it into their phpBB signature. If new users make a post about a website that they appear to not be affiliated with, it's removed as advertising because we do not give new users the benefit of the doubt. Once they are established, we do try to give them the benefit of the doubt that when they say/act like they're not affiliated with something, they really aren't, unless we find otherwise.
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Ritu · Posted: 4/17/2006, 10:17 am Post subject:

i don't know may be i sound rude but i strictly don't allow any links in the signature on my site. users have a option in profile to give link to their website, else of this i have drawn a line to not post any links without the permission of forum moderator / admins.

sometimes pointing out this makes a user feel bad, but we say it in a soft manner and if the user is just a regular user and not really on your site for advertising he/she don't mind it usually.
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