what about limiting certain areas the site until someone has been a member "x" long?

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by GeoffC

Ah -

Mods may speak with one voice .... though I've seen occasions when two have gone onto a thread, one after the other and yelled at the posters .

I have to dissagree Geoff. I have seen on more than one occasion; "I think this has gone on long enough... or is getting out of hand..." and it hasn't been the royal "we"

Originally Posted by tompe

Exactly. And it is especially bad when the moderator that closes the thread participates in the discussion. To me this always seems like "I do not like this discussion anymore so know I am closing it" since usually no reason is given for closing a thread.

yep!

[Angst]

As long as we are considering banning new members from certain areas, I think we should also restrict people:
- who have red hair
- are under 30 years of age
- with glasses
- without avatars
- with uninspiring user names

It seems to me people should be banned for their actions, NOT because they might make a bad post.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by Angst

As long as we are considering banning new members from certain areas, I think we should also restrict people:
- who have red hair
- are under 30 years of age
- with glasses
- without avatars
- with uninspiring user names

It seems to me people should be banned for their actions, NOT because they might make a bad post.

you missed my point entirely. I am suggesting a waiting period to get into the lounge for new members. it seems the lounge attracts the most spam and someone who has an axe to grind can quickly make a bunch of "socks" or alternate online id's and spam the forum like mad. if, on the other hand, there is a waiting period, most people get the anger out of their system by the time they have gotten over the waiting period. as I said earlier, since you obviously didn't read the thread, there is a waiting period for getting married after obtaining a marriage license, a waiting period for purchasing a firearm, certainly a small waiting period could be considered for membership in the lounge. even a 3 day wait would keep *most* angry people with issues from spamming up the place like we saw recently. those that are holding onto issues beyond that period of time have even bigger issues and probably shouldn't be playing in the cyber pool anyway

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

you missed my point entirely. I am suggesting a waiting period to get into the lounge for new members. it seems the lounge attracts the most spam and someone who has an axe to grind can quickly make a bunch of "socks" or alternate online id's and spam the forum like mad. if, on the other hand, there is a waiting period, most people get the anger out of their system by the time they have gotten over the waiting period. as I said earlier, since you obviously didn't read the thread, there is a waiting period for getting married after obtaining a marriage license, a waiting period for purchasing a firearm, certainly a small waiting period could be considered for membership in the lounge. even a 3 day wait would keep *most* angry people with issues from spamming up the place like we saw recently. those that are holding onto issues beyond that period of time have even bigger issues and probably shouldn't be playing in the cyber pool anyway

Well, if that WERE to come to pass, I would refuse to participate in this site any longer. It's elitist and judgemental, not to mention totally ineffective - You can't control other people's emotions.

It's the internet for Christ's sake, otherwise perfectly rational people WILL occasionally behave like absolute pigs on it because ther are no significant sanctions against bad behavior. Sanction the behavior, not the newbie. I guarantee traffic to this site will drop precipitously if something like that were to occur.

[Worldwalker]

We have a prohibition against new users having avatars; how would limiting access to certain forums be any different? It has nothing to do with people's emotions, and everything to do with keeping people from making fifty sock puppets and spamming their favorite spam forum. Even fanfiction.net of painful thought has a 24-hour limit on certain uses, for that exact reason.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by tompe

Exactly. And it is especially bad when the moderator that closes the thread participates in the discussion. To me this always seems like "I do not like this discussion anymore so know I am closing it" since usually no reason is given for closing a thread.

Tommy, this quite valid issue has been raised in the past in the Star Chamber, and now we try in all instances to avoid a participant being the one to perform the closure.

I personally take the point about explanations being included in closures of threads...for instance, I do recall that Alex is one to provide such explanation, and in the end I do try to emulate Alex in Moderation.

In regards to the "we" and the individual actions...well, it's not hard-and-fast rule. If there has been much discussion and consensus in the Star Chamber, we might sign off with our name, but include "The Moderator Team" under our name. Sometimes it's just that. When we (well, this is how I think) are thinking that some urgent action needs taking, but there's only a couple of us in th Chamber (or just one person who feels action is pretty clear), I think we tend to sign off as "Moderator" alone. I suspect this can give the impression that it's all about a Moderator saying "I..\..HAVE...THE...POWER!!!", but you should also consider that this could be a case (it is with me) of admitting individual responsibility for the action...of saying "I did this, so please don't blame all the Moderators if it turns out to be a bad decision". There are a lot of nerves in the Star Chamber, and sometimes one or two of us can feel like we're acting alone (and want to make sure people know that - as I said in there once, "I started it, so I'll post it and take the flak"). Timezones means this often happens (it seems that me, dreams and pooh are often tag-teaming at the same time, and also supporting each other with our inherent anxieties ).

I'm not invalidating perceptions - we have discussed the importance of perceptions a fair bit in there - but rather giving other possibilities to events, actions and their reasoning. We are all individuals (and that also applies to MR in general), with different personalities, styles of rhetoric, tone, and language (and there is almost always disagreement). I don't know if we'll ever speak as "one voice" (perhaps just many voices in harmony? ) but we try to, and when we can't we try to show that we aren't.

[I should put a conditional down here, now that I read back my words...I say "we" a lot above, and I suppose it's just my own perceptions of that "we". As always, unless I'm typing green consider it a personal view]

Cheers,
Marc

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

We have a prohibition against new users having avatars; how would limiting access to certain forums be any different? It has nothing to do with people's emotions, and everything to do with keeping people from making fifty sock puppets and spamming their favorite spam forum. Even fanfiction.net of painful thought has a 24-hour limit on certain uses, for that exact reason.

In the specific case of vengeful sockpuppets, without a global restriction on posting, they will likely just post elsewhere in the forum. For example, we've had them in The Lounge, General Discussions, and this area as well, Feedback [Marc has flashback to one frustrating incident]. As usual, this is not a dismissal...just data to be added into consideration.

Cheers,
Marc

[montsnmags]

In the specific case of spam, some data...

In the last month, we have the following number of posts reported as SPAM by our membership (broken up by sub-forum, highest to lowest):

General Discussions: 20
News: 9
Amazon Kindle: 7
Lounge: 6
Reading Recommendations: 6
Deals, Freebies & Resources: 4
Sony Reader: 4
Apple Devices: 3
Introduce Yourself: 3
LRF: 2
Which One Should I Buy?: 2
Alternate Devices: 1
Autres liseuses: 1
Barnes & Noble Nook: 1
Bookeen: 1
Kobo Reader: 1
More E-Book Readers: 1
Reading & Management: 1
Visitor Messages: 1

TOTAL: 74

This does not include the few (about 1 a day) auto-captured by the auto-moderation part of the software, nor stuff we manage to find ourselves and delete before it's reported (which is a sort-of game too ). It's probably a reasonable representation of the spread though.

I'm of the opinion that SPAM is not that big a problem here. It's reported, caught, or just discovered by mods, and spam-ban-and-deleted pretty quick. It's certainly one of the easier, (enjoyable ) auto-pilot parts of Moderation, because there's simple process set up along the lines of (1. Delete post as spam? Y/N, 2. Delete all posts and threads started by user? Y/N, 3. Ban user? Y/N). I think it might be a distraction to the "trolling" and "sockpuppetry" issue...not an unimportant issue, of course, but one that is less a part of this issue, no?

Cheers,
Marc

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

This does not include the few (about 1 a day) auto-captured by the auto-moderation part of the software, nor stuff we manage to find ourselves and delete before it's reported (which is a sort-of game too ).

Well, I won the game a couple of months ago when that VERY detailed listing of sex toys was posted. In the interest of making perfectly sure it was spam, I read through the WHOLE list (saying things to myself like, What? Really? What on earth would THAT be used for??)

Then I reported it.

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by bjones6416

Well, I won the game a couple of months ago when that VERY detailed listing of sex toys was posted. In the interest of making perfectly sure it was spam, I read through the WHOLE list (saying things to myself like, What? Really? What on earth would THAT be used for??)

Then I reported it.

I missed that!

[astra]

Originally Posted by kindlekitten

I missed that!

[Worldwalker]

Are you including the DVD people in that?

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Are you including the DVD people in that?

When someone reports a post using the "!" button, then the SPAM button, it creates a new thread (with the SPAM prefix) in the Star Chamber (if more than one person reports the same post, it appears as a post within that thread - it doesn't create a new thread). So, yes, all of the DVD stuff (which is most of the SPAM) is included if reported so. Occasionally people don't use the SPAM button (most do*), and sometimes (rarely, but we try ) we find it first, in which case ther's no thread to count. The actual numbers would thus be higher, though they seem proportionately accurate.

Cheers,
Marc
(* If the SPAM button is not used, it still creates a thread, but without the SPAM prefix. I manually counted the month's posts by opening every SPAM-prefixed thread and noting the sub-forum, then adding them up)

[kindlekitten]

Originally Posted by montsnmags

In the specific case of spam, some data...

In the last month, we have the following number of posts reported as SPAM by our membership (broken up by sub-forum, highest to lowest):

General Discussions: 20
News: 9
Amazon Kindle: 7
Lounge: 6
Reading Recommendations: 6
Deals, Freebies & Resources: 4
Sony Reader: 4
Apple Devices: 3
Introduce Yourself: 3
LRF: 2
Which One Should I Buy?: 2
Alternate Devices: 1
Autres liseuses: 1
Barnes & Noble Nook: 1
Bookeen: 1
Kobo Reader: 1
More E-Book Readers: 1
Reading & Management: 1
Visitor Messages: 1

TOTAL: 74

This does not include the few (about 1 a day) auto-captured by the auto-moderation part of the software, nor stuff we manage to find ourselves and delete before it's reported (which is a sort-of game too ). It's probably a reasonable representation of the spread though.

I'm of the opinion that SPAM is not that big a problem here. It's reported, caught, or just discovered by mods, and spam-ban-and-deleted pretty quick. It's certainly one of the easier, (enjoyable ) auto-pilot parts of Moderation, because there's simple process set up along the lines of (1. Delete post as spam? Y/N, 2. Delete all posts and threads started by user? Y/N, 3. Ban user? Y/N). I think it might be a distraction to the "trolling" and "sockpuppetry" issue...not an unimportant issue, of course, but one that is less a part of this issue, no?

Cheers,
Marc

how many of these spam postings are the one hit wonders that get on to market their goods and services vs. sock troll types?

[ardeegee]

Something I was wondering about-- do the usernames of all the "one and done" spammers remain as part of the listed number of MobileRead members? Because that would skew the membership list by quite a bit.