Shaed
29-07-2006, 15:07
Firstly: For those not in the know - 'Mod Only' is just a request that no one not formally accused or implicated respond to the post, except the Mods. Just because you can post, doesn't mean the 'Mod Only, please' isn't in effect ;)
Just wondering where you lot stand on self proclaimed die-hard spammers coaching newbies on 'hiding' their spam?
I've seen more than one person, in a couple of threads now, telling people to 'make sure your title doesn't look spammy' or to 'make the first post has a few paragraphs copied from a news piece, with a sentence at the bottom commenting on it, and then make a second post starting the spamming' and the like.
I'm... kind of uncomfortable seeing this. I can understand that there's a fairly uneasy alliance between spammers and debaters. I understand that there'll always be spam, and that you guys have enough work with the REAL issues without devoting more time to spam...
But is there anything in the rules that would allow you to discourage this sort of encouragement for underground-spamming? After all, when the spam LOOKS like spam, at least us debaters can avoid it. If spammers are going to start trying to make their chat threads look like debate threads (and not only do it themselves, but tell newbies that this is 'The Way To Do It'), it's going to be a lot harder to sort the spam from the debates.
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I'm not going to post any references until I know this is actionable, because I don't want to step on any toes if possible. But I can supply a couple if it is (since I wouldn't expect you to track them down yourselves).
Just wondering where you lot stand on self proclaimed die-hard spammers coaching newbies on 'hiding' their spam?
I've seen more than one person, in a couple of threads now, telling people to 'make sure your title doesn't look spammy' or to 'make the first post has a few paragraphs copied from a news piece, with a sentence at the bottom commenting on it, and then make a second post starting the spamming' and the like.
I'm... kind of uncomfortable seeing this. I can understand that there's a fairly uneasy alliance between spammers and debaters. I understand that there'll always be spam, and that you guys have enough work with the REAL issues without devoting more time to spam...
But is there anything in the rules that would allow you to discourage this sort of encouragement for underground-spamming? After all, when the spam LOOKS like spam, at least us debaters can avoid it. If spammers are going to start trying to make their chat threads look like debate threads (and not only do it themselves, but tell newbies that this is 'The Way To Do It'), it's going to be a lot harder to sort the spam from the debates.
----
I'm not going to post any references until I know this is actionable, because I don't want to step on any toes if possible. But I can supply a couple if it is (since I wouldn't expect you to track them down yourselves).