[Side Note] I typed this up once already, and posted to find out I had beomce logged out. I lost it all... how sad. Pity me.
Anyways, spam is a pure, 100% Grade A attraction for good summaritans and evil bullies alike. It's like celebrity marriges; constant attention, yet completley pointless. Problems do not occur directly FROM spam, but from people who respong to spam. I have compiled some simple steps to take in order to reduce confusion...
1. Do not automaticly report spam using the "Report Post" feature. Save that for addresses being given out *smiles* or crude, offensive posts.
2. There are several types of spam. Observe how to deal with each accordingly from this list.
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Fun Topics:
Perfectly legitimate! Examples would be Online Hike or Ask A Stupid Question. Individual topics that are catchy and meant to have fun. Some people often overreact to them and spam that its spam inside of the spam topic which only adds more spam until spam arguments spam up in the spam topic until theres so much spam its annoyingly spamalicious.
As you can tell, its better to just ignore them unless you want to participate. Rest assured that these will be closed if they get out of hand.
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Basic Spam: First things first,
look for any decent potential within the topic. This can save many feelings and topics by itself, and requires no moderator at all.
EX: If a topic looks like this- "hey i like harry potter its cool isnt it?", then theres reasonable potential to talk about Harry Potter. It can be saved.
EX2: If a topic is like this- "hey i like meatloaf and gravey do you all?", then it can be safely assumed to be spam. Use instincts here, if you have them. Theres no large market for talking about meatloaf online.
THIS IS THE ONE ACCEPTABLE TOPIC TO REPLY TO AS BEING SPAM! In that case,
ONE person will reply to it as being spam, and why. Then, no one else except possibly the author should reply back.
FURTHER POSTS SAYING A TOPIC IS SPAM WILL BE TREATED AS SPAM THEMSELVES!. Be sure your replies to topics such as this are polite.
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Mistaken Spam: This is often from people descriminating against bad spelling. If the topic is typed poorly,
just decode it. We all have brains. We all know decent English here. Follow steps for
Basic Spam once you understand it. Be nice and contribute to teh topic if you can, if theres potential for discussion. Set an example.
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Wrong Forum Posts:
Ignore these! Moderators are perfectly competent.
3. Put some faith in the staff here. It isn't that hard to leave something alone. remember, follow steps according to what kind of spam a topic is.
4. I cannot emphasize politeness here. Follow neiquette, please. Do not hurt other feelings.
5. Pictures etc... are a fine and humorous way to reply to spam posts, as long as
everyone can laugh. Don't post anything crude or offensive, honestly...
Anywho, once agian, have faith in the staff. We have brains, you have brains. Understand with your brain that our brains can comprehend what your alls brains can. If you can't understand what I just said, you probalby shouldn't be going around trying to judge if things are spam or not
If you have any extra comments or suggestions or arguments, you can post them here. Tah tah
Some Reminders On Spam
You made some really good points in there Majic.
