For this I refer to my "need to stop people going offtopic?" flow-diagram.
Spam seems to sort itself out if nobody says anything about it.
Ambi will testify that 99% of the time I don't take my own advice, as she's shut me up in the past by throwing my own rulebook at me. I tend to just verbally firebomb everyone when they spam in my own threads. But still... I know for a fact that I wouldn't go on a spamming spree... I just occasionally feel the need to add a little of what we would traditionally consider "spam". Once I've done it I don't carry on, it usually always ends there and is therefore not worth making a big deal out of. I'm sure most people are the same here.
I think part of the problem here is our definition of spam, and I think that this is exacerbated by the type of community we have here. We're a small community and we all take on the responsibility of stopping spammers... also we all accept that we use our own judgement to work out what is spam and what is not, and have reached an unspoken consensus on what constitutes spam. This means that people we don't like end up committing more spam-crimes, simply because we see spam where we want to see it, and people we love can get away with a lot worse because we're prepared to accept their contribution as enjoyable content.
We would cut this problem at the neck if we set a definition of spam, and made it the job of the moderators only to sort out spam. We perhaps all need to take on the responsibility of making it clearer to everyone that they are not the ones who sort out problems... because that's where the problems start, like Used said. People see spam and decide to take the law into their own hands, but end up causing arguments.
As for the definition of spam, traditionally it's something with no content or point... if it's intended to make people laugh for instance, then it's not spam, because it's a joke, and that has an honest point. It counts as content, and content is what a forum is all about. If it's the opposite of content, in that it's really short and doesn't serve any purpose, or tries to but doesn't succeed, then it's spam.
Our definition of spam, is just a loose umbrella term for anything we dislike. Not really a good idea if we've got a community of people who take the law into their own hands.
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