Quality, not quantity! Please have a read.

ozt9vdujny3srf

Hey Guys,

To state the bleeding obvious the amount of traffic going through the board these days has become huge, we really have built quite the community for ourselves. There are some excellent posters on this board and I really think this place has the potential to become a really interesting place to read and post.

The problem we have however is the fact that the good posts are lost in a crowd of what can only be described as "postcount++" / "I was bored so I posted some crap" spam.

This has caused the board to become a real chore to read, and if its a chore, why the hell should anyone bother coming here?

The place is pretty far gone at this stage and there is a real danger of it turning into the likes of this, which is a shame, because like I said, there are a lot of really good posters here.

So the way I see it, there's two things that need to be done to rectify the situation:

Firstly, I need to change my approach to not only remove the abusive and illegal, but also to lock threads that I feel have lost their way, and delete posts that while may not directly break any rules, do not add anything to the message board either.

Secondly, this board belongs to its posters and how it goes in the future will be based on what you guys post, so I'd ask you to ask yourselves the following questions before you post:

• Will this be interesting for other people to read, or will it just make it harder to find the stuff that is interesting for people to read?
• I disagree with a post, is my post attacking the poster or the post?
• Am I repeating an argument that someone else(or even I) has already made?
• Am i getting involved with a tit for tat argument that really isn't going anywhere?
• Will everyone who reads this board understand what I'm saying? Will it be funny to someone who doesn’t know anyone here outside the context of this board (i.e. real life(tm))
• And the obvious, is this against the charter rules.

I hope all of this seems reasonable, and I really hope we can have a message board where the signal/noise ratio is 100 times better then it is now.

Feel free to comment...

Mr.Nice Guy

My view is that things will sort themselves out over the summer. Numbers will dwindle with the academic term over and people working and just generally enjoying summer.

I would support locking threads that go off the rails but not deleting comments as that seems a bit too excessive to me.

Part of the reason I think there's so much spammage, apart from the obvious reason that people know each other, is that people haven't come up with interesting threads lately.

I'm not going to single any thread out in particular but a glance at the forum shows many threads which are just there for the sake of being there. Again, I think this has to do with the time of year we are in and the fact that things are pretty uneventful seeing as we are out of college.

Stabshauptmann

Dont just lock spam, delete it, or move it to the cookoos nest when there is no benifit to your post count.

BKtje

i think a lot of the spam recently is because of the exams and people just using it as a way to not have to study. I dont think anyone is really (well not many) are using it to just up their post count.

Lock threads that go off topic, keep an eye on the offenders and warn/ban. Now theres nothing wroing with a "clique-y" (or however its spelt) as long as it doesnt spill over into every thread and it stays put in the threads where it belong.
JUst my opinion of course.

singingstranger

Not that it will carry nearly as much weight from a spammer like me (hey, I'm trying - see my sig), but I really don't think people used the Spam Thread as a postcount++ thread either. Obviously it could be seen to serve that function given that TCN posts don't count, but it did serve a purpose in that it acted as a magnet for whatever spam would be brought to the forum as a whole.

The only shame is that it would lose its relevance if reopened and brought to TCN.

Mr.Nice Guy

singingstranger wrote:

Not that it will carry nearly as much weight from a spammer like me (hey, I'm trying - see my sig), but I really don't think people used the Spam Thread as a postcount++ thread either. Obviously it could be seen to serve that function given that TCN posts don't count, but it did serve a purpose in that it acted as a magnet for whatever spam would be brought to the forum as a whole.

I felt the spam thread acted as a magnet for spammers to post on this forum. I think Truckle did the right thing locking it.

Blowfish

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

I felt the spam thread acted as a magnet for spammers to post on this forum. I think Truckle did the right thing locking it.

Thats probably true. It encouraged the posting of crap, even if it was in the right place. Saying that though, it actually worked as a temp quickfix solution. The amount of spam in other threads dropped because of that thread, and peachys diligent efforts. I definitely think it was the right thing to do to lock it, as it would have never worked longterm, and (as I said in the thread) the speed it was increasing in size was phenomenal, it got over 750 replies in just over a week. It wouldn't have been long before it would have ended up in the 'boards most posted threads'. That would have been incredibly bad, as it would simply make this forum look like a joke.

humbert

I think the spam thread was a quick fix during the exams when people are going to be posting rubbish because they have much more important things on their minds and so I think it would have been better to have left it till after the exams were over to try and crack down hard on spam. That said a certain *cough*singingstranger and *cough*p_larkin* were taking even spamming to the extreme. I don't think the spam thread attracted spammers to this forum, no strangers appeared as far as I can remember and it's relative length isn't of any importance.
The exam period aside I think Truckle's quick guide for posting is spot on.

Blush_01

humbert wrote:

I think the spam thread was a quick fix during the exams when people are going to be posting rubbish because they have much more important things on their minds

I don't have anything else to say.

Chakar

Moderators *locking* is needed here...or not?

hullaballoo

No, the thread is open for discussion, just like the Forum Charter. If people want to propound an argument for spamming, they can do so here. For the time being, spam is not allowed, and it's unlikely to be allowed as long as I moderate this forum. If there is a successful argument for allowing spam in this forum, then Truckle might decide to allow it. I doubt it though.

Blowfish

tbh I think you will have to keep a close eye on the survivor stuff, thats almost asking for spam.

hullaballoo

I agree. I have had words already, but I want it to be a bit of a laugh, so I don't want to cut out all of the spam. Just the off-topic "what u up 2?" stuff.

panda100

Blowfish wrote:

tbh I think you will have to keep a close eye on the survivor stuff, thats almost asking for spam.

yeah what the hell is alll this survivor stuff all about anyways??Do we get to throw all of you on a dessert Island in the middle of the lake for a month and see who survives the longest......??