Seems... Spammy.

[Tandyman100]

When I signed up on this board, back in 2010, it was a nice place. There were a few key members who posted a lot, most of the people spoke English well, and conversation was generally on-topic and focused on the finer points of computing.

I come back now and... web site advertising board? Uneducated lusers posting everything that comes to mind?

It just seems to me like the overall quality of posts made here has gone down drastically since when I signed up... I don't have any suggestions to fix it, just wondering if anyone else has noticed the same thing.

 

[dale]

I am new to this place. But I have been digging through the site and I agree.

Numerous accounts are posting blatant ads about many different hosts. I have no problem with ads, but having watched the hosting industry for a long time, it is safe to say that these hosts are tiny players with no (good) reputation whatsoever.

Yet these accounts go through a good number of them, providing good reviews for them, without having to provide proof of ever having being clients for them. The only educated guess at this point is that they are paid to shill.

Shills eat away the credibility and integrity of the forum. I wish CF would take a more proactive attitude towards them.

 

[Tandyman100]

"Shills"? That's the name for that? Interesting.

Admittedly, I have done a little bit of self-advertising, but I can live with that

On a forum this large, the sort of advertising you're referring to is so plentiful it'd take a heck of a staff to control it, which I don't know if cf.org has or not.

 

[dale]

IMO, advertisements can be honest, self-advertised or not. Sure, most tend to emphasise the strong points and hide the weak, but such is the nature of advertisements.

Shills, on the other hand, are people who do not disclose their affliation with the advertising entity and/or disguising as someone who have no affliation with the entity. This is usually done through the form of paying customers (which they are not, they probably get paid to advertise, which is complete opposite form the fact) or through the form of interested buyers (which is also not true).

Shilling is dishonest, and in many countries a form of fraud. TBH it does not bother me that much because I usually just filter the related boards out with the exclude syntax. But this is one area that desperately needs proactive attention if CF is open to suggestions. I personally am happy to hit many, many report buttons at a user, but it is not going to help the situation without a stronger stance from CF.

 

[Tandyman100]

Accidental learning! D:

That is interesting, though. And I agree, CF needs to do something about the shilling, but I doubt the staff is big enough at this point.

 

[berry120]

FWIW, I don't think the overall quality of posts is going hugely downhill - sure the board isn't perfect, but we still have a good community of members here that do post informative, quality content.

In terms of the advertising board, yes a lot of the content there isn't great - but that's no new thing, it's pretty much been left that way for years now. We may take a more proactive approach on pushing back the spam there in future though

 

[MMM]

If you think there is lot of spam being posted on this forum it can be controlled quite easy, all it needs is a few dedicated moderators or the whole team involved and it can be cleaned up in no time and kept that way....
I'm talking from experience as I moderate on an another site which is successful in controlling spam.

 

[berry120]

If you think there is lot of spam being posted on this forum it can be controlled quite easy, all it needs is a few dedicated moderators or the whole team involved and it can be cleaned up in no time and kept that way....
I'm talking from experience as I moderate on an another site which is successful in controlling spam.

It's not controlling spam coming in, that gets dealt with pretty quickly and successfully - manpower there I don't think is an issue. The real issue here is only with that one sub-forum, deciding what posts should be kept and what should be deleted, how to deal with those members who have been posting there without problem for a while now, then going through and doing it.

We're on it. It will be sorted out, it just requires a bit of planning and logistical preparation first

 

[MMM]

When you say sub forums does that mean you mods are only dedicated to certain sections of the forum?

 

[berry120]

No, I simply mean the spammy / shilly(?) posts are just confined to that section - it's not a huge problem for the whole board.