Forum Spam?
 

Hey NPF members...I have returned (although most probably hadn't realised I'd left in the first place). The reason I haven't been posting much lately is due to an unhealthy obsecession with world of warcraft. Warning: Do not buy this game unless you want it to consume you life...

Anyway, hopefully I should be getting back to these forums more often now that my brief addiction to WoW has worn off...

Regardless, my question is this: Apparently there has been alot of spam going around these forums while I've been away, according to shiney's last post on the main page. Can anyone fill me in on the extent of this problem?

Well, it's pretty much just new people posting threads that are complete spam. If you go to General you can count at least 4 of them that had to be closed because of this.

Edit: An add on, there has been a lot of new people typing random stuff in serious threads and the like. Far more than usual in fact.

I'm not that great when it comes to forums, can someone tell me what spamming is?

So, I have one question, if a poster types something related to the general area of the forum, but has little to do with the topic, usually it is somehow related to their lifes, is that spam? Additionally, if you comment on another posters post without adding to the topic, is that spam? And would it still be spam if they add one sentence to keep the post on topic?

Something that doesen't belong to where it has been posted = Spam.
"Hello" or "Ok" posts (One word posts) = Spam.
Something completely useless in any other way = Spam.

That pretty much sums it up I think.

And also I don't think that spamming only aplies to new members. Of course it's true that new members have the tendency to spam a bit at first, but still so called "old" members spam sometimes too.

You haven't seen spam until you've seen 5 pages of the same topic (20 threads per page) this was at the Bungie forums. It was a tragic day.

Yes if it doesn't really contribute to the topic it is spam. If it is an event in your life that relates then no it isn't.
Yes, it would be spam and it would probably be a better idea to take the subject to PMs or another thread. If you add a sentence to remain on topic, I believe that's fine but I think you should try to avoid having two topics in one thread if possible.

The mods are pretty good about just saying "hey, take that elsewhere" as long as its not something completely inane and stupid.

yeah, if you're worried about pissing us off, then you probably wont piss us off.

What if its something thats on topic with teh thread, but doesn't answer the main question that the thread was created for. so as to say, I made a joke which was on topic with someones question they were trying to ask, not a bunch of jibba jabba, but didn't really answer their question, and was more along the lines of an attempt at comedy, does that count as spam, Also considering this was not in the Discussion forums.