[Laminar]

If it is true that there are people who get paid to post with the intent of overtly advertising for a site, whether it's by mention of the site directly or in the user's sig, does MacNN allow that?

I realize that some users have links to their own sites in their sigs, but their intent in posting isn't to advertise the site. I'm talking about people that vomit their barely relevant posts all over the lounge with the sole intent of getting the sig shown.

What's there to do? I already reported spam.

[seanc]

I think I know who you are talking about and I too, am just as suspicious about them. *Waits to see what happens next*

[reader50]

Spammers are spammers. If we can be sure about one, then they're gone. The hard part of course is being sure.

The regulars still show up. Mega-phones-list guy, DVD -> iPod lady, the gnomes of the WoW Gold Sales Consortium. But we've been seeing more subtle types in recent months. Those can take awhile for us to catch, especially if they have a new approach.

[Cold Warrior]

Interesting timing. I also think I know whom we're referencing. Sometimes I feel like a couple members behave more like bots, sweeping into the boards over the course of a few hours or days, replying to everything they can, just to create more hits on the junk in their sig.

[Lateralus]

?ybaBalegnA

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

?ybaBalegnA

Heh heh. I was about to PM a mod about said person.

[besson3c]

I just want to let all of you guys know that I'm a real person. You can't automate my awesomeness... Don't let my signature fool you!

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by Lateralus 

?ybaBalegnA

Yeah. I logged on to see one person had the last post on nearly every first page thread in the Lounge. Normal people don't do that.

[Atomic Rooster]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Yeah. I logged on to see one person had the last post on nearly every first page thread in the Lounge. Normal people don't do that.

Normal? Here? Explain yourself please.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Yeah. I logged on to see one person had the last post on nearly every first page thread in the Lounge. Normal people don't do that.

One might say that normal people don't start threads about accordions either...

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

Yeah. I logged on to see one person had the last post on nearly every first page thread in the Lounge. Normal people don't do that.

There are normal people in the Lounge?

[Rumor]

This was covered when she first registered. While displaying her sig in such a manner may be uncouth, it was determined that she was not a bot or typical spammer as she actually added to threads (some times).

[reader50]

A human paid to make individualized spam posts would create problems for us. They'd pass most of our spot-the-stupid-bot tests. But it does not make sense from the advertisers' viewpoint. Say a human makes a post every 2 minutes, during an 8-hour work day.

If they are in the US and paid $7.50 per hour, it works out to $0.25 per ad posted.
If they are in China and paid $1.00 per hour, it works out to $0.03 per ad posted.
vs a bot doing automated spam posting. Probably less than $0.0001 per ad posted.

Spammers are cheap, or they'd buy banner ads with Google. I'm not seeing the business case for employing a real person to make potentially-annoying posts, just so a few sig links will remain visible.

[Chuckit]

Infiltrating message boards and mailing lists is an actual form of guerilla marketing. The idea is that people are more likely to listen and posts are less likely to be deleted when it's coming from somebody "real." Of course the people who do it aren't the same ones who want to sell you Nikes and PS3s on the cheap. This sort of technique is more often used by bands and movie studios — the sort of thing where they want to build awareness and interest rather than sell you something then and there.

[Cold Warrior]

Her sister must live on another board

NG BBS - Search

[analogika]

Originally Posted by reader50 

A human paid to make individualized spam posts would create problems for us. They'd pass most of our spot-the-stupid-bot tests. But it does not make sense from the advertisers' viewpoint. Say a human makes a post every 2 minutes, during an 8-hour work day.

If they are in the US and paid $7.50 per hour, it works out to $0.25 per ad posted.
If they are in China and paid $1.00 per hour, it works out to $0.03 per ad posted.
vs a bot doing automated spam posting. Probably less than $0.0001 per ad posted.

Spammers are cheap, or they'd buy banner ads with Google. I'm not seeing the business case for employing a real person to make potentially-annoying posts, just so a few sig links will remain visible.

I'm thinking paid-per-clickthrough coming from that domain.

[ghporter]

This is one of those fine-line issues. Some people get paid per hit on their sites and others don't. Sometimes it's hard to tell. If there is actual content (and we just can't go into the "useful content" or most of the Lounge would fall into the "useless" category) and the signature has links, it's usually going to be a matter of "do those links get in the way of our users?" I've seen a number of bots attempt to spam us by posting things like repeats of other people's posts (not even quotes), empty stuff like "good point there!" and so on, just to get their links seen. A real person - and I believe the user we're discussing without actually discussing her IS a real person - whose signature happens to have links in it has a completely different pattern of posting. In this case, the posts are on topic, (even in the "hot babes" thread) and have what I consider "actual content." If this unnamed user changes her behavior, that's something that NEEDS reporting right away.

By the way, in responding to the report Laminar made originally, I intercepted another user whose signature was both out of compliance and WAY too commercial. We'll see how that one plays out-most sig-spammers just plain quit after being contacted to change their sigs.

[OwlBoy]

Hey guys, I heard about this great site that pays you just to use forums! All you have to do is mention the products they tell you about! It's really great, and I already made $100 this month! NO JOKE!

http://www.spamyourfavoriteforumforcash.tv

[Oisín]

^ Damn, you suckered me into clicking on that!