SPAMPO - Spam Police

Hagar

Why not have a SPAMPO thread like the SIGPO thread?

The spam / shill issue is being discussed at great lenght here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054883929

Rabies

Is it really needed?
Spam/Advertisting/Pimping is usually caught very quickly. User gets banned, thread deleted. Smods and Admins are quick to catch the offending posts.
Maybe a merge with the Sigpo thread and cover it all. A super snitch thread

DonkeyStyle \o/

Wha?
Just report the post and hurl a string of abuse at them... it's great fun.
Although I still prefer Amps more creative method of editing the original spam post to make it funneh.

azezil

DonkeyStyle \o/ wrote:

Wha?
Just report the post and hurl a string of abuse at them... it's great fun.
Although I still prefer Amps more creative method of editing the original spam post to make it funneh.

that'll get you banned too

DonkeyStyle \o/

azezil wrote:

that'll get you banned too

Well it hasn't so far... but then I don't regularly visit any of the boards you moderate. :v:
tbh I think we can all agree that spammers of that ilk should be scrapped and sold for body-parts... IMO they signed away their right to polite treatment when they signed up to abuse our community for free advertising.
Unless other forum posters find the abusive comments offensive, which is fair enough... but it's not like I'd post a picture of tubgirl with a big arrow and text saying <-- HERE'S YOU. :rolleyes:

For example this morning I found a post on Fashion / Appearance with some twat pimping a jewelry website/business as if they'd found it by themselves and "oh isn't it like SO cool?!!" ... I searched their previous posts and they were more blatant pimping... so I reported the thread and told the OP to f*ck off, just to mark it publically as shít until it can be dealt with properly.
I suppose I could have directed them to contact an admin RE: buying proper ad-space on boards, but I doubt they'd give two shíts... the scum suckers that they are.
Besides, these threads anger me... a few cuss words now and then to vent my hatred saves lives in the long run. :mad:

Hagar

I'm only suggesting it as the majority of recent bans on the "Banlist" are spam / ad related. I think this points to a trend that should be watched. Here's the list. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/banlist.php

stevenmu

The smods already take care of any spam pretty quickly. What I would like to see is some way of hitting back at the shills/spammers. I think it might be a good idea to have a Spampo forum. Anytime a company spams or shills a new thread could be created for them giving an email template along the lines of

Dear Sir/Madame,

I am writing to inform you that I will be boycotting any products made or distributed by your company <company name>, and shall be enouraging my friends, family, colleagues and associates to do likewise. This is due to the insidious marketing practices employed by <company name> in the promotion of it's products. <insert examples>. This boycott will continue untill your company gives a public undertaking to immediatly cease all such practices

Yours sincerely,
<insert name>

and also give a list of email addresses of CEOs, Chairmen, Marketing dept and PR dept. Then everyone can mass mail the template to them and see what happens.

On the downside, the feckers would probably just take every email they get and add the address to their spamming databases. Also, I'm not sure what the legalities of mentioning companies in this manner may be.

Steveire

Spam fighters of the world unite huh? I doubt a company would care if it got that kind of email. I don't believe it would be taken as sincere. Do you really boycott companies that use spam marketing? Would you really encourage your friends and family to boycott them? The chances are you don't use their product anyway, so a boycott wouldn't take any effort for you.

stevenmu

Steveire wrote:

Spam fighters of the world unite huh? I doubt a company would care if it got that kind of email. I don't believe it would be taken as sincere. Do you really boycott companies that use spam marketing? Would you really encourage your friends and family to boycott them? The chances are you don't use their product anyway, so a boycott wouldn't take any effort for you.

It depends on who the mail goes to. CEOs, board members and PR people are all going to worry about the negative publicity aspect of it. If it was just me, they'd probably go off to lunch and have forgotten all about it by the time they get back, but if even just a hundred boardsies all mailed them, then they'd start taking it a bit more seriously. For bigger companies, especially Irish based ones, it could also attract some media attention.

rsynnott

Rabies wrote:

Is it really needed?
Spam/Advertisting/Pimping is usually caught very quickly. User gets banned, thread deleted. Smods and Admins are quick to catch the offending posts.
Maybe a merge with the Sigpo thread and cover it all. A super snitch thread

Usually, not always. And there are a few clever edge cases, where it isn't quite clear whether the spam is spam or real, or whether the spammer is a real user's alter ego.

I support this product or service.

Karoma

Rabies wrote:

Is it really needed?
Spam/Advertisting/Pimping is usually caught very quickly. User gets banned, thread deleted. Smods and Admins are quick to catch the offending posts.
Maybe a merge with the Sigpo thread and cover it all. A super snitch thread

I think it's more to catch the less obvious spammers..
I fully support/endorse this product - as it will undoubtedly lead to bitchiness \o/ from attack to counter-attack over and over ..weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Rabies

rsynnott wrote:

Usually, not always. And there are a few clever edge cases, where it isn't quite clear whether the spam is spam or real, or whether the spammer is a real user's alter ego.

Just look at the users post count and posting history if you have doubts. They never last too long anyway.

boardy

Prime example from today:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50872093#post50872093

Talliesin

boardy wrote:

Prime example from today:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=50872093#post50872093

I don't think it's strictly what one would consider Spam, but we come down hard on pyramid schemes as well.

I think the poor bastard actually thought it would work, rather than being one of the originators of the scam, so banning him may be an act of kindness.

Of course, that thread's deleted now.

Talliesin

stevenmu wrote:

The smods already take care of any spam pretty quickly.

We do depend on reports to do so though. However, simply hit report post on a post that looks like Spam to you, the mods will report it to the smods if necessary and we'll look at it. (Okay, so reported posts is a bit b0rked right now, but the SMods will still see Spam reports).

boardy

Talliesin wrote:

I don't think it's strictly what one would consider Spam, but we come down hard on pyramid schemes as well.

I think the poor bastard actually thought it would work, rather than being one of the originators of the scam, so banning him may be an act of kindness.

Of course, that thread's deleted now.

It is a pyramid scheme but it probably came to the user as a spam message (i.e. a good filter would have classified it as spam).

How could the original poster have not known that his actions were not acceptable?

Just a suggestion: Have a "terms of use" when a user registers on boards. Maybe a short one or two liner that states that spam, advertising, personal abuse is punishable by loss of access.
I know you have the charters, but in reality the user may pay more attention to it in the introductory stages of boards.

I believe that the poster in this example was just clueless and did not know that they were doing wrong.

Talliesin

boardy wrote:

I believe that the poster in this example was just clueless and did not know that they were doing wrong.

That's true of everyone except the person who started the pyramid scheme.

We do point out some things not being acceptable, but there are other things one should have learnt by the age of 10.

What next, I have to potty-train users?

boardy

Talliesin wrote:

What next, I have to potty-train users?

I feel for you ....... (really do).

What I did was initiate a simple policy that all users signed (clicked) before getting access to my company's systems and if they did step out of line, at least I didn't feel bad exacting retribution as they were explicitly forewarned and could not claim ignorance.

rsynnott

Really, anyone stupid enough to actually believe pyramid scams needs banning.

Talliesin

boardy wrote:

What I did was initiate a simple policy that all users signed (clicked) before getting access to my company's systems and if they did step out of line, at least I didn't feel bad exacting retribution as they were explicitly forewarned and could not claim ignorance.

You mean like the messages you get when you sign up to boards?

I know we used to explicitly mention pyramid schemes. Maybe this has changed.

But really, understanding "don't buy into pyramid schemes, and don't expect us to help you" isn't that higher in the list of educational milestones than "sit down on the toilet before you do that".

Karoma

rsynnott wrote:

Really, anyone stupid enough to actually believe pyramid scams needs banning.

For only a small contribution I can tell you how to recruit others to reject spam. You'll easily make this money back. PM me!


JaneyMackers: http://pie.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?searchid=1441472
.. verdict, Hagar?