Spam in members' signatures

Question: Why do so many new members have links in they're signatures to DVD sales sites?

Can that many folks out there have nothing better to do? Or is that just part of the internet game, and it's always been that way.

It's a subtle form of spam that the mods and I have caught onto and been discussing lately. Aside from the potential traffic benefits, there's an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) aspect to it, too. They're probably trying to boost their rankings.

I run searches now and again for some of the offending sites, and quite a few members have been banned over the last few weeks. I might go as far as to automatically block any links to the offending sites, if it continues.

Yeah it's a little weird. I guess in the grand scheme of things its a pretty small thing. I may have clicked on one once by accident, I just don't see the point you know? Is someone out there really going to click on someone's sig so they pick up that copy of Saw 4, that apparently isn't available anywhere? Somehow I doubt it. I think about random stuff like this is why I even bring it up.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Yeah, you make a really good point. You'd have to be pretty ignorant of the market to want to buy from these sites when Amazon is infinitely more reliable, and certainly no more expensive.

Some of it, however, is just to improve search-engine rankings. Google, in particular, seems to rank sites largely based on the text used to link to them by other sites, making it potentially beneficial to link to your own site here with specific keywords. It's an inexact science, but people still take it quite seriously.

Whatever the reasons, I can't stand it. It's almost worse than "regular" spam, because it's sneakier. If anyone here sees any relatively new members with multiple DVD-site links in their signature, please let me know! There's a good chance they're just here to promote things.

BINGO! You have a very good knack for putting into words what my underlying feeling was about the issue in the first place. Yoda the wise little goblin type creature. "The Force is strong with this one."

What's that link in your sig, Chris?

*runs*

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and in yours

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I used to be addicted to crystal meth, now I'm just addicted to Breaking Bad.

...it's...uh...er...




Hey, look over there!

Let he who is without spam cast the first tin!

But seriously, if the boss can't link to his own non-profit site built entirely from love and the sweat of his knuckles, who can? I guess our Spam police are so on the ball these days that the lowlifes imagine they're now being subtle.



The Mods will find you, sure as the turnin' of the earth...

Sneaky spammers fall into the same category as Telemarketers to me... and you don't want to know what I've had to say to a few of those...

Anyway, I have no idea if anything like this would be remotely possible or how hard it would be to do... but what about keeping new members from even being able to have a signature until they had posted X amount of times... similar to the new thread rule we had once?

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It is indeed remotely possible. That's not a bad idea at all. I'll have to have a look at that. Thanks, Cait!

This one covers all the bases - If the knuckle-draggers start flooding the boards with one word posts to reach their 25 (or whatever) they get zapped anyway.

It'd probably be too much bother for them to even attempt that and they'll slither off to find a new host.

Spam in people's signatures is just stupid and annoying. You'd never get that sort of treatment from my friends at Explosm Comic's but that's just how the cyber worlds becoming acording to Coke which is simply thirst quenching.

What did we ever decide to do about this? We've got one on here now trying to sell puppies....

It's within the rules to simply put a link to your site in your signature, provided the site's content isn't objectionable. What's not okay is numerous people from the same (or very similar) IP addresses all posting links to the same site, or other things of that general nature.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that this was happening, and all the members in question had their signatures removed, and their accounts banned. A number of their IPs were banned, too. It took awhile to realize anything was going on, because their posts were perfectly legitimate and fairly numerous; both uncommon for spammers. I think, all in all, around 20 accounts were banned.

Anyway, we'll certainly be keeping a close eye out for any other systematic linkings/registrations.

This might be a slight deviation to the general, but I've been wondering lately what constitutes spam these days on the Web. It seems like in recent years, as spam has become increasingly more invasive (popping up everywhere you wouldn't expect to find advertising, like Blogger, Myspace, and the like), the definition of spam has also become more and more absolute. So the question is, where do you draw the line between simple advertising and spam?

This also relates a bit to what I wrote above. Telemarketers are quite invasive, but links posted in member signatures are considerably less so. Of course, quite a bit of spam found on the net constitutes just as much invasiveness as telemarketers, but is degree of invasiveness the primary issue? If not, what other issues decide whether or not we hammer down the spam stamp?

That's what I was going to say. Well, actually, I was going to say that if it were me, I wouldn't allow any dot coms for nick-names, user titles, no spam in posts, ever, and no links in their signatures, until they have made 100 decent posts. Maybe 250 decent posts. I've always been a hard-ass, though.

Seriously though, if they came here to be a member, they won't mind. As far as I'm concerned, URLs serve their best purpose in posts. I could easily get over having to wait on using one in my signature, but seeings how I wanted to be here, to be a serious poster, the use of URLs were needed in my posts.

I had this problem once on another board, where I needed to post pictures in my posts, and I was going to have to wait until I did 70 posts, to be able to use them. Then, while posting on that board, I noticed 4-5 very lame posts, from some girl, and in her signature, was a link for free downloads. What a surprise! That way of doing it, is so backward. I'd make them prove their desire for being a true poster, before I would let them dot com anything. I think 15-20 posts would be a fair trade for posting URLs in posts. Is there a limit for that as well, before being able to post URLs in posts?

Well, in one sense, there isn't a line, because none of the people in question are paying to advertise. So in this case, advertising and spam are (nearly) one and the same.

I think you can make a case that spam/advertising/whatever has become less absolute, too, depending on your perspective. As an end-user, I agree, it's quite plain and obvious sometimes. But things like a multiple users all with the same link in their signatures, but posting normally at semi-regularly? That's a lot subtler than most spam.

I'll say about spam what a lot of people say about art, or pornography: I can't always define it, but I know it when I see it.

In all seriouness, though, I find myself usually defining "spam" as anything whose primary goal is self-promotion. It's not a perfect definition, but I find it works pretty well.

Yeah, we were kind of torn on URLs in usernames for awhile. We don't allow them anymore, though I haven't yet bothered to go back and remove the old ones, largely because none of them are active anyway.

There is, though right now the minimum is just 10 posts. We had a 25-post minimum for even starting threads before, but eventually decided that was driving too many people away. I think the link restriction is just about the best balance we've found yet, but I'm definitely open to tweaking things further if anything better presents itself.

Darnit, there goes my "Buy 7thson's Flash Gordon cookies ad.

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