The Nature of Spam

So I hope everyone will forgive me if this thread seams foolish to all of you but I simply must ask:

What is this evil thing called spam?

As odd as it may seam to some of you I have never frequented an internet message board before Evony's little Off Topic Forum. I see many posts about it. I see people pining for the "good ol' days" of Evony of Yore as though spam was unheard of back then. If have seen some say spam is never OK. I have seen others call people out for spam in what appeared to be innocent posts to my untrained eye. I have seen mod posts saying that some spam is OK- as though there is a right kind and a wrong kind of it? The whole thing confuses me...

On one occasion (I will attempt to avoid specifics as I do not intend to begin a battle with anyone over this, only relate a point that has been bothering me) I was called out for creating a thread that was supposedly spam and yet I honestly had not thought it was such. What truly shocked me was that two posters, with a few thousand posts between them and whom appeared to be OT regulars, proceeded to leave dozens of messages at the end of my thread that were basically all repeating the same sentence and had the effect of totally derailing my thread. Nobody said "hey, that is spam."

There are those who posts multiple messages daily on every thread and hold conversations with one another and this appears acceptable in most cases. I begin to settle into our way of doing things here only to see another poster call this same behavior out as spam later on.

I swear, the entire concept of spam seams slippery to me. It seams ill defined and hard to pin down and I find myself totally clueless as to when a post I want to make will be considered spam and when it will be seen as a fair post.

I ask that all of you "old timers" here on the OT answer my question so that I can better know what it is you mean when you all call for a return of the "good ol' days."

Thanks

It is slippery.
That's why it's against the rules altogether in the other sections; any spam is bad.
In OT it's more lax, but has defintely become worse recently.
This is due to abscence of Mods and people jus' not carin' anymore for w/e reason.
The self-moderation thing obviously isn't workin' as a lot of the regulars are veerin' into it pretty badly.

Acceptable spam would be a post that's off-topic, maybe light-hearted or has some kind of point to it, but otherwise spam.
Unacceptable spam (in my eyes) is things like someone appearin' in a thread for the first time and sayin' "I have nothin' to say about this". That's useless, a waste of a post, achieves absolutely nothin' other than bump their post count up.

I will probably be hated for this, but some of the worst spammers are the first to call out others for spamming.
To me, posting "this is spam" or "stop spamming" is just another form of spam.

It's a fine line. Sometimes a thread almost demands to be derailed and spammed, by it's very nature. At other times it can be really annoying if you are trying to carry on a debate and a spammer keeps breaking the thread.

The very worst type of spam to me is when posters start holding a running conversation inside a thread or game that is totally off topic and just banal. I don't want to wade through pages of that sort of rubbish, trying to find a point where the original thread resumes.

Sometimes a funny picture or a line can break the tension and give everyone a laugh, so that's pretty harmless and usually allowed.

I wrote a similar post some time ago about SPAM (the meat product) vs spam (in the forums). I got told it was spam too, even though it was a half page long and was full of information and (I hope) some humour.

I think there will be some new mods very soon and the self-policing will vanish. In a lot of ways, it resembles bullying.

Typically, if a post has absolutely nothing of value to add to a conversation, I consider that spam. If a post intentionally derails a topic, that's spam. If an entire thread wanders around aimlessly without any actual topic, that would be spam. If it is a duplicate of another, existing thread, that's spam.

Here's an example: We've beaten the discussion of the Evony advertising campaign to death. We now know, and can categorically state, what every person here thinks about it. Great. Lovely. At this point, to start yet another thread about it would be absolute spam in my eyes, if not outright trolling or even instigation. It serves no purpose whatsoever and is highly unlikely to lead to any sort of reasonable discussion.

And yes, you are absolutely right that some of the same people who scream about spam are the worst spammers of them all. Some of these people feel the intense urge to jump into every single thread and post "OMG SPAM!" all over the place. No, it's not ok, and yes it drives me nuts.

One of the worst things I see is when someone new comes in here to ask a simple question or start up a topic, and their post is harmless. Perhaps it is spam, or maybe just doesn't belong in here, but by the time I see it, we've got three pages of people flipping out on the OP over it and spamming the poor thread to death.

Now, this is the Off-Topic section, and to be honest, I am pretty easygoing with regards to spam here. If you aren't hurting anyone, and you haven't ruined someone's discussion, I tend to let a lot of the spam go. We have to draw some lines or else the board would be unusable from all the spam threads, but we still offer a good bit of lenience here. If you want to truly understand spam, go to my "Behaviour out of control" thread and read everything after about page 3. lol The OT'ers spammed my poor thread to oblivion.

foxy is right, and don't ask me why? I still have the infractions she gave me for spamming ^_^

and oh yeah nice sig, really really cute ^_^

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Originally Posted by FoxyBunny

If a post intentionally derails a topic, that's spam. If an entire thread wanders around aimlessly without any actual topic, that would be spam.

lol The OT'ers spammed my poor thread to oblivion.

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Jus' wondering, why is that okay? :s

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Originally Posted by Cringe

Jus' wondering, why is that okay? :s

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no that wasn't okay, most of them got infractions, of course, trust me foxy really puts infractions, suspensions and bans, nobody will be spared.

Well, in that particular case I allowed it because my post had more to do with general hostility and misbehaviour than anything else. People here were turning on each other and breaking rules left and right and I wanted it to stop. They stopped. And in that thread, for the most part, they were NICE to each other. And they had fun. And there were no rule breaks! So I figure they got my point and that's enough for me.

As for the spam in general, we actually DO allow spam in this forum if it is contained. We provided a few places for it. The Convo thread and the Bar are the most notable examples of this. Neither has an actual topic, and neither does anything more than wander around aimlessly as people have fun and chitchat. That's fine with me. I just don't like when the spam roams outside and starts messing with every thread that actually has a purpose.

I really didnt know what it meant either. I knew what spam was to e-mails but not what discussion board spam was. Thanks for clearing it up

Want to know what isn't spam? Well, I hate to toot my own horn, but look at any post I have ever made. I always follow thread rules and try to post more than the 10 character limit.

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Originally Posted by Lord Arumen

Want to know what isn't spam? Well, I hate to toot my own horn, but look at any post I have ever made. I always follow thread rules and try to post more than the 10 character limit.

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Arumen, please forgive me for using you as an example- I mean no offense:

To me this post is spam. There is no real discussion or explanation of the nature of spam- which is the topic of this particular thread. It does not actually advance our discussion on the topic any further and leaves us open for the thread to derail when the next poster wants to argue his assertion that his posts are prime examples or to argue that their own posts are better... To me it's really a means for Arumen to brag about his past posts and suggest that his are the epitome of what good posts should be. A quick sampling of his posts shows me that many of them could be seen as spam were you to be looking to identify it by a specific set of rules... but then, I see nothing wrong with his post. I don't mind it being here, I found it relatively interesting to read and I'd say that it causes no harm.

Is this perhaps the best definition to spam that we can all arrive at? That the post causes no harm to another poster or to the thread in general? If this is the case, and I suspect it is given that I witness EVERYONE (myself certainly included) spaming at least a little, then why is it so important for people to worry about the "good ol' days" or to attack people and threads as spam by means of new spam? I was always taught that two wrongs don't make a right- So this begs the question, do two spams make no spam?

A case in point: A while back someone new started a thread about what music we were currently listening to. A few people responded and it looked to be a thread that would gain interest and momentum. But several people had to continuously interject in the middle of everyone's posts that it was a repeat thread and that it was therefore spam. When they were ignored and more people continued to answer this thread the posts became more insistent that it shouldn't be there. The thread was derailed and to my knowledge the original poster never took a permanent place here in the OT community. Her topic was fair, others were interested and responding- why was it so important that we all put an end to it? Further, if this new person who didn't even realize it was a repeat post had actually found the original and posted there- could she not then have been accused of "necroing" it?

This whole affair further muddles in my mind what all of us, as the OT community are looking for. We want a place of lax rules to facilitate conversation style posting and yet we all want to cry about rules infringement any time a newb steps out of line? Perhaps when I ask, what is spam? I really mean to ask, What does the OT community expect form all of us newbs so that we can return to their precious "golden age?"

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Originally Posted by vesuvanprincess

Arumen, please forgive me for using you as an example- I mean no offense:

To me this post is spam. There is no real discussion or explanation of the nature of spam- which is the topic of this particular thread. It does not actually advance our discussion on the topic any further and leaves us open for the thread to derail when the next poster wants to argue his assertion that his posts are prime examples or to argue that their own posts are better... To me it's really a means for Arumen to brag about his past posts and suggest that his are the epitome of what good posts should be. A quick sampling of his posts shows me that many of them could be seen as spam were you to be looking to identify it by a specific set of rules... but then, I see nothing wrong with his post. I don't mind it being here, I found it relatively interesting to read and I'd say that it causes no harm.

Is this perhaps the best definition to spam that we can all arrive at? That the post causes no harm to another poster or to the thread in general? If this is the case, and I suspect it is given that I witness EVERYONE (myself certainly included) spaming at least a little, then why is it so important for people to worry about the "good ol' days" or to attack people and threads as spam by means of new spam? I was always taught that two wrongs don't make a right- So this begs the question, do two spams make no spam?

A case in point: A while back someone new started a thread about what music we were currently listening to. A few people responded and it looked to be a thread that would gain interest and momentum. But several people had to continuously interject in the middle of everyone's posts that it was a repeat thread and that it was therefore spam. When they were ignored and more people continued to answer this thread the posts became more insistent that it shouldn't be there. The thread was derailed and to my knowledge the original poster never took a permanent place here in the OT community. Her topic was fair, others were interested and responding- why was it so important that we all put an end to it? Further, if this new person who didn't even realize it was a repeat post had actually found the original and posted there- could she not then have been accused of "necroing" it?

This whole affair further muddles in my mind what all of us, as the OT community are looking for. We want a place of lax rules to facilitate conversation style posting and yet we all want to cry about rules infringement any time a newb steps out of line? Perhaps when I ask, what is spam? I really mean to ask, What does the OT community expect form all of us newbs so that we can return to their precious "golden age?"

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Offense? I take none.

Technically Spam is only something that wishes to sell you something. My post didn't do that. But aside from that, the post put out an effort to help give an example to that of which you happened to be seeking. If I had posted it in another thread it would have been spam. In this thread (in which one hopes to decide the nature of spam) a post quantifying what one should seek is not spam.

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Originally Posted by Lord Arumen

Offense? I take none.

Technically Spam is only something that wishes to sell you something. My post didn't do that. But aside from that, the post put out an effort to help give an example to that of which you happened to be seeking. If I had posted it in another thread it would have been spam. In this thread (in which one hopes to decide the nature of spam) a post quantifying what one should seek is not spam.

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I concur.


Further, Spam is now defined beyond the literal to include any posting that is not "worthwhile".


The problem, of course, is who decides?

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Originally Posted by Wildor

The problem, of course, is who decides?

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I think that's the millon pound answer.
There is no final definition of forum spam; it's pretty much jus' in the eye of the beholder.
One persno might see spam as repeat threads.
Someone else might see trolls as spam.
Someone else might see pointless posts as spam
Another might see derails as spam.
Another might see all of the above.
The last guy might jus' not give a damn and start talkin' about his cat.

Which is one reason why I think self-policed OT fails. Other forums might work, but with less restriction here, it gets out of hand. Everyone's view is different on the subject.

Have three mods all agree on one universal standard of what will get you punished and whether people agree on it or not, that's the rules. Then it's up to people to do the self-policin' and follow what the set standard is.

Foxy has given her opinion on it, but one person here, who also happens to mod every other forum and considerin' the number of posts here, it's not likely to get enforced on a fully regular basis so people do it and get awya with it.

On other forums it's not as bad simply because there is a solid point.
"Where do I get Honour Medals?" That has a clear cut topic and any spam by most people's definition can be identified as such.
Here, where tangents and strayed conversations can easily take over an evolving debate without actually spammin' it, it's not so clear cut and thusly spam becomes harder to indentify and deal with.