What is "Spam"

[dANdeLION]

I am accused of spamming a lot, but the truth is that I honestly don't know how 'spam' is being defined here. Merriam-Webster defines spam as follows:

Main Entry: 1spam
Pronunciation: 'spam
Function: noun
Etymology: from a skit on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus in which chanting of the word Spam (trademark for a canned meat product) overrides the other dialogue.
: unsolicited usually commercial e-mail sent to a large number of addresses.

Now, I suppost the first definition is closer to what you guys mean than the second, but I hardly ever use the word "spam" in my posts. So please, help me define it if you want it to go away!

[Revan]

I think, dAN, Spam in which, you and I are accused of is useless posts, meaningless, crap that has no point to it. In other wordds, the Mallory Forum.

[dANdeLION]

I find several topics in the Mallory forum to be fun, and even educational. If stuff like that was truly meaningless, then why are crossword puzzles so popular?

[Revan]

You said it yourself... That they are meaningless... Or most of them are... Some of them... I agree... are quite good to play.... but most of them, as you have said, are utter crap.

[Worm of Despite]

I have the honor of being the first official spammer ever. I was a proto-spammer, so to speak. A pioneer. My spam predated all of you!

A bit of background: it was posted in the Announcements thread. It was this thread where I was complaining about e-Bay needing my credit card number for verification. Totally nonsensical! Classic spam!

[dANdeLION]

Wow; and so modest, too.

[Worm of Despite]

I try.

Actually . . .

I don't.

[dANdeLION]

You said it yourself... That they are meaningless... Or most of them are... Some of them... I agree... are quite good to play.... but most of them, as you have said, are utter crap.

Show me where I have said this.

[Revan]

I don't copy my chats dAN... sorry.

[Worm of Despite]

I suggest a Final Solution for the Spam Problem. Let's begin with this thread.

[aTOMiC]

Spam clearly means different things to different people. If a person can find no value in a post or series of posts I suppose that person would label that as spam. I find very little spam on KW. What I would define as spam would be posters dropping a one word response into the middle of a previously unengaged conversation or multiple posts by the same author creating a lengthy and distracting one person discussion. Mallory is filled with posts of people enjoying word games. That value is evident in the number of different members posting there daily. There have been minor abuses of members going off topic in private discussions that can last for pages, but I haven't seen that happen in months. I participate on a number of other message boards and KW doesn't suffer excessively from spam by comparison. I would hope that any member of the Watch that may find a particular discussion thread valueless, would simply avoid that thread or forum. As an example I steer clear of the political and religious discussions as a matter of choice. All of this is of course…..IMHO.

[Revan]

edit

[I'm Murrin]

The most basic definition is Stupid Pointless Annoying Messages, but really, it's personal opinion as to what counts as spam...
Some things classed as spam in one place could be appropriate in another context - I'll use the comparison everyone else is using - like the Mallory forum.
It is very hard to define spam specifically.

[dANdeLION]

HA! You sent it me in a pm today! I just remembered. You said that a poster in there... whom posts quite a lot is spamming! So there!

That's such a misrepresentation of my pm that I think you should apologize. I mean, I could define 'spammer' as anybody with more posts than you, as you postulated this very morning on the watch, but I'm way too cool to do that. Cool cat, indeed.

[[Syl]]

www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=spam&type=2
spam.abuse.net/overview/whatisspam.shtml
www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html

According to the traditional definition (as traditional as anything called spam can be, I guess), nobody here has spammed. Commercial solicitation isn't spam, flooding isn't spam, and tons of pointless posts aren't spam. Bad form, maybe.

As far as bad form goes, mentioning a PM in a public forum without the sender's permission is usually considered a tad gauche. I know boards that will ban you for it, even.

[Loredoctor]

For those people who accuse posting in Mallorys spam, I'd just like to say you are wrong. The place is a WORD GAMES forum; you're not expected to write essays in there! Spam, in my opinion, is the nonsense stuff that goes off topic in the threads. Stuff like single posts of 'heh', 'lol' and the chats between members. I do it myself occasionally.

[Durris]

Like my slightly embarrassing exchange with MokshaFoul in the "welcome newcomers" thread...who wants to be dignified 24/7? Hope I haven't made a permanent foe...

[Fist and Faith]

Syl's second link is my understanding of spam, which means that nobody here has ever spammed to my knowledge.

The thing that many have complained about regarding more than one member is just annoying posting. Specifically, getting into multiple-post conversations, usually of no more than a few words per post, which have nothing to do with the thread's given topic, or any of the areas that the thread has evolved to. It's especially annoying to the creator of the thread, who may have had high hopes for a serious discussion.

Still, imo, this kind of silliness occasionally is no problem, and I've done it myself. But it has, again imo, been overdone in the past. It used to be difficult to follow the serious discussions when only one post of that type would fit on each page, crowded as they were by the nonsense. In protest, rather than actually complain, I got the cooperation of a couple of members that I'm on extremely good terms with (:mrgreen:), and took over one of Darth's threads with a rather odd conversation. I don't pretend that my little protest had an earth-shattering effect on him. I'm not sure he even noticed. (Oh, my ego!!! ) But whatever the reasons, I'm glad that all of the folks who used to do this kind of thing have pretty much stopped. All in all, I don't think it's a problem any longer. Now we get one or two harmless jokes in the middle of serious discussions, and they often make me smile.



See?

And btw, the Mallory games are not spam by any definition. It is as Ur-Vile said.

Durris, put the thought out of your mind.

[matrixman]

Caer Sylvanus makes a good point about bad form, especially concerning PM's being made public without the sender's permission. There's a reason why they're called private.

I don't think it's fair to target the Mallory forum. As Ur-Vile said, you're not expected to write essays there. I thought the purpose of that forum was to be a place where you could indulge in fun and general silliness without fear of righteous condemnation or whatever.

I try to do what TOM C does: ignore threads that are meaningless to me, and avoid ones that seem to be shouting matches more than civil discussions. But I admit it's hard to avoid feeling annoyed at seeing a really good topic getting hijacked by stuff that honestly belongs elsewhere. I guess we all walk a fine line between irreverence and irrelevance; when we cross or stumble over this line, then accusations of "spam" start flying. Again, I look to the Moderators to maintain the peace and integrity of the Watch. TOM C doesn't feel that KW suffers a big spam problem compared to the other boards he's on, so that's good enough for me. That means the Mods are doing a good job, and it means the citizens of the Watch themselves are doing a good job.

[Guest]

Discussion Board Etiquette
Like e-mail, using the Discussion Board has preferred methods for communicating. Here are some problems that may occur with online discussions and remedies, excerpted from "What's Wrong with On-line Discussions and How to Fix It" by W.R. Klemm, D.V.M. Ph.d. (used with permission)

Problem Remedies
1. Participants don't realize the purpose. If a discussion does not have obvious goals and requirements, participants tend to think of it as a virtual lounge. Depending on their need for socialization, they may or may not participate extensively. If they do participate, they may spend too much time in trivial chit chat, rather than intense intellectual dialog.
a. State the purpose and objectives explicitly
b. Use content-rich topics
c. Require group deliverables (plans, projects, reports, case studies, etc.)



2. Purpose is unclear and expectations are vague. If a discussion is just a work space for miscellaneous comments, people may not supply much relevant input. Indeed they may not know what relevant input is, because the group leader provided insufficient guidance.
a. Explain the purpose and goals
b. Give feedback to serve as model
c. Make certain everybody knows that important people are monitoring and evaluating participation


3. Lurking. Participants just read, but do not contribute. Some people are shy. Some are insecure. Some are not as well informed as others. But on-line discussion groups can be a great equalizer and can allow the talents and knowledge of everyone to be tapped in ways that never occur in face-to-face meetings.
a. Require input
b. Publicly discourage lurking
c. Reward input
d. Minimize negative feedback
e. Build community
f. Build teams


4. A few people dominate all the discussion. The corollary of lurking is that a discussion becomes dominated by a few people who do all the talking. People get tired of their constant chatter. These people also tend to get carried away with idle comment.
a. Fix the lurking problem
b. Make certain you have a group leader with authority
c. Give gentle corrective feedback by private mail
d. Post publicly the need to maintain focus, stay on task, and keep message volume down


5. Comments are trivial. Comments are weak, irrelevant, or off task
a. Discourage it and explain why
b. Give examples of trivial input
c. Have specific goals and tasks
d. Remind people to stay on task
e. Model desired behavior and praise others who do


6. Comments are opinion driven. Messages are often nothing more than each person's opinion on a topic. Asking students, for example, to express their opinions, which is all that many teachers do, does little to develop students' knowledge base, not to mention their creative, integrative, and analytical abilities.
a. Insist that opinions be defended
b. Create tasks that get beyond opinion


7. Participants don't know what good input is. Many people have no experience with on-line discussions and little way to know what constitutes useful exchange of information.
a. Show by example what good input is
b. Praise the good input of others


8. Nobody reads what is posted. I remember a presentation at an educational technology meeting where the speaker, a professor, proudly displayed a listing of all the e-mail messages his students had posted. Notably, the messages were all annotated with New, meaning that he had not read any of them. It is a good bet that the students had not read them either.
a. Create groups
b. Use shared workspace, where many messages can be open in one place
c. Assign group editor to write summaries


9. There is no tangible result. An unfocussed discussion without specific goals and tasks will almost inevitably prove unproductive.
a. Use a constructivist approach that requires participants to generate a product or some kind of deliverable

References:
Klemm, W.R. (2000). What's Wrong With On-line Discussions - And How to Fix It [Electronic Version]. Proceedings of WebNet 2000 World Conference on the WWW and Internet, 335-340.

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Last modified: Feb 13, 2004, 16:40 EST





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