I think its time to have a board discussion on what qualifies as Spam. The crazyhouse by definition is a spamhouse. I have always thought thus and after several forays into the thread I deemed it a waste of time and left it to the likes of everyone with a high post count now

My own 4 words only thread was closed as it qualified as Spam in the eyes of Icewave. I think maybe Icewave got his (postcount) and now he doesn't like the new nooblets racking up the post count the same way he did. To defend that particular thread... a person could definitely convey substance, only use less words to do it. Sort of a challenge in that way.

So my own particular definition of spam is something that has no substance, and no redeeming quality. No matter how long or short it is. Now someone implemented a system of using the wordcount as meter to how much vizz you get. All well and good but how does that measure substance, not mentioning how people love to quote... 5 paragraphs of other peoples comments in their own. Perhaps rework the quote system so that it says "reply to post #3454" and have it link to that particular post.

Two more things I have to provide comment on are... I am not a fan some of the extravagant layouts and... when signing in, a tab should take you from the User input to the Password input vs going to the "forgot password." Should be a simple nice, improvement. Might have to wait for Randy to get back though. Its just how the internet works. Soo, let the flaming begin. We need to get this Spam thing worked out.

I just posted about what I considerd spam in the "Ask ??? Thread", it went somethng like

Benny, is your real name Ben? << not spam.
Benny, Do you like Pi?? I like pi.. ^^ << spam

The length of your sentence shouldnt matter (without being extremly short like "...", solong as its a sentence.

There has been a few staff discussions about what we should close, and what we should keep open, its not to do with IceWave04s hunger to stop people catching up to him.

4 words or less, was ok, untill it wasnt making much sense anymore.


I like your ideas on reworking the quote system, but its good to know whats in a quote... We could possible count words in between quote tags, then subtract them from the total.

That user input to password thing is because I dont know about tab index. David or Randy might know. (or could move them links to below the box's and make them smaller).

But this thread isnt about vizzed improvements, this is about spam. Make a vizzed comments thread if anyone wants to post ideas about vizzed board.

A rule to apply is understanding what SPAM stands for... Stupid Pathetic Annoying Message.

So think before you post, is your message any of the things that SPAM stands for. and not by your standards but by the standards set by common sense based on a few simple things.

1) Is this forum the thread is located in based upon broad spectrum of discussion (IE: Crazy House) or narrow spectrum (IE: Debate and Logic Discussion)

2) What is this thread about?

if this is your first reply.
2a) Is my post relevant to the FIRST post and NOT the last post?

If this is your second reply.
2b) is my post relevant to the REPLY that someone has made about MY LAST post that is still within the spectrum of the thread.

Basically, the way 2a and 2b work depends on 1. You can sort of sway in Crazy House, infact its encouraged. But still, SPAM is SPAM. And no ones like it. If you made a thread and it gets filled with useless SPAM from other people, do you like it? Probably not... its not what you wanted to talk about. So, make the first step. Dont SPAM to start with... Also, my rules are more like a guideline... a thing for the newer people who SPAM alot to think about...

IceWave only has 346 posts in that Thread Zylo

Zylo, that's a good idea with the quote thing. The 'post quality feature' also determines how much Viz you get but it hasn't turned out the way I had hoped, the 'thumbs up and down' is what determines the quality of someones posts. If a user enough thumbs down, they get half as much Viz per post and if someone has enough thumbs up, they get double the amount of Viz per a post (since they'd be considered a person with quality posts).

Anyway, we can do 1 of 2 things with the crazy house; make it so that you get less Viz per post in crazy house or make it so it doesn't rise your post count. I'm open to other idea's. And if we did one of those 2 things, any time we think a thread is starting to get spammy, we just throw it into the crazy house

Anything that doesn't further discussion is spam. Anything that goes far to off topic is spam. Anything pointless is spam.

In other words: There's a "thread" that goes trough every thread, this "thread" may sway and turn and go any way it wants, you may direct it in different ways from the beginning just don't make to sharp turns. and always make sure that you're helping it grow longer.

Hooray for being philosophic!

Originally posted by Zylo

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My own 4 words only thread was closed as it qualified as Spam in the eyes of Icewave. I think maybe Icewave got his (postcount) and now he doesn't like the new nooblets racking up the post count the same way he did. To defend that particular thread... a person could definitely convey substance, only use less words to do it. Sort of a challenge in that way.

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And to defend myself on that though David already had. If i close a thread due to it being used for SPAMing... Do you think thats an invitation to start a new one. I closed the original one NOT because it was getting to big or because i dont want people to have high post counts. Its because i HAD already discussed this with David and the idea of closing it was agreed upon by him.

Again, i close a thread. You open it again. You have NO right to complain about the fact that i closed it.

Originally posted by Davideo7

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we just throw it into the crazy house

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You make it sound like a mental hospital.

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And I have no clues as to stop spamming...

Maybe the reason why people are spamming more is because they keep being told not to spam? I don't know.

I think the reason why people are always going off topic and "spamming" is because they want to talk about more than one thing when posting in a thread (like someone may mention something which makes the poster think of something un-related to the topic) in a thread, and don't feel like making a new thread which would die in a few days or be considered spam.

Once again, I do not know. I'm not one to understand people well over the internet.

Originally posted by IceWave04

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Originally posted by Zylo

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My own 4 words only thread was closed as it qualified as Spam in the eyes of Icewave. I think maybe Icewave got his (postcount) and now he doesn't like the new nooblets racking up the post count the same way he did. To defend that particular thread... a person could definitely convey substance, only use less words to do it. Sort of a challenge in that way.

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And to defend myself on that though David already had. If i close a thread due to it being used for SPAMing... Do you think thats an invitation to start a new one. I closed the original one NOT because it was getting to big or because i dont want people to have high post counts. Its because i HAD already discussed this with David and the idea of closing it was agreed upon by him.

Again, i close a thread. You open it again. You have NO right to complain about the fact that i closed it.

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I didn't make another one, and don't have the power to open anything. However I feel that I am perfectly within my rights to say something about it. Also I think Dave was being facetious.

346 Divided by 4179 = 8.23% Yes that is not a lot.

Sooo, even one word simple posts like "pie" can be not be spam in my mind if it brings a smile to a couple faces. I don't think you need to replay to the initial posts. I'd just say let the youngsters know that quality matters. However lets say people are having a good time and talking about pie, are you going to deny them that good time?

Activity is activity, and as long as people are enjoying themselves, that's what trully matters. It might make the board look sloppy but as long as they contain those spammy posts to certain forums and threads, it's not a huge deal.

I think THAT qualifies as spam, Zylo.

Originally posted by Zylo

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Sooo, even one word simple posts like "pie" can be not be spam in my mind if it brings a smile to a couple faces. I don't think you need to replay to the initial posts. I'd just say let the youngsters know that quality matters. However lets say people are having a good time and talking about pie, are you going to deny them that good time?

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The major thing I would see as actual "spam" if a person was using a one-worded post, would be if it was completely unrelated to the topic (unless to bump a thread).

Though when a topic is EXTREMELY serious, and someone posts something completely random, regardless to it being spam, funny is still funny.

Also, conversations about pie are fun.
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And finally...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anwy2MPT5RE

I, myself, don't agree with having "4-word threads" because it becomes the primary active thread.

David, I understand how you feel about activity, however I would rather post in a board that has 600 intelligent posts than 6,000 posts that are full of garbage. To be honest with you, there are quite a few threads on here that have posts that don't contribute anything to the topic. What if I want to respond to that thread? Do I respond like that last few posts or do I try to revive the topic and post something that makes sense? If people want to derail a topic by posting crap, they'll just keep doing it and ignore any further contributing posts.

Remember, there's a difference between having fun and being stupid.

VGFreak, I definitely see your point, and that's why we keep threads that are vulnerable to having spam in the Crazy house. Any forum but the crazy house (and maybe even newbie forum if the newbie is also going crazy) should be of quality posts and should stay on topic.

If I was a new member and if I were to make a thread hoping for an intellectual or decent conversation and came back the next day and found 10 new replies but none of them supported the topic that I had started, I'd feel upset. Not only having wasted time reading all those 10 replies for no reason, but because my chance at starting a discussion is basically destroyed. And if that 10 spammy replies turned into 50 but there were a few good replies within that 50 spammy replies, a quality poster will not even see those good replies because they will just skip them all assuming that they're all going to be spammy replies or they don't have the time to hunt down any decent replies.

If someone does get a little weird or crazy in one of their posts not in the crazy house, than atleast the other half of their post should be quality just to continue the discussion and to avoid making it go off topic or from becomming a spam fest. Also if a serious thread has just a few crazy posts, that is somewhat acceptable but when more than 50% of the replies of a thread are spammy and crappy (or show no intelligence), than things are getting carried away.