In this thread about why pirates bite gold coins, there was a visit by a new board member providing a link to a paper about this subject. Since I have amazing powers of recall, here’s the link:
Engineer_comp_geek called this poster a spammer, and removed the post & link. If it truly was a spammer, are you claiming they made up a bogus paper just to post here? Otherwise, I fail to see why this should be called spam, and I hate spam more than anybody.
I agree. Even if it was his own research paper, it is an actual research paper with citations and everything with information relevant to the original question.
That post looked like someone just referencing a paper, but that’s not what that post was. It wasn’t obvious in the post, but the person making the post was the paper’s author. They only signed up on the SDMB to promote their paper. That’s a spam.
Yes, that. I have no doubt it was his original research paper. The pub date is March 2017 – maybe he was looking around for places to stick it that cared. It certainly isn’t of mainstream interest. I don’t call that spam.
I disagree. Where in the membership agreements is that particular offense spelled out?
His post was intentionally written as if it were someone else just referencing his paper. He was being sneaky in trying to promote his own paper. We see this from time to time with authors promoting their own books and pretending to just be someone posting about it. It’s just spam.
Promoting your own book is you trying to sell something. Is that the case with guys promoting their own papers? If not, then it seems benign to me, and I don’t see why it should be against the rules.
If the posting was deceitful, then it should be removed … as E.C.Geek has done … but I’m guessing the paper is okay … would Musicat be allowed to repost the paper’s link in the thread in question? … it is relevant to the thread and it is pretty funny …
I was going to propose that as a general rule, enforcement of rules should be poster agnostic. In other words, it shouldn’t be OK for one poster to run afoul of the rules for posting the exact same post as another poster*.
However, I can see it kind of being a problem if the poster is only posting to promote their own book, presumably for monetary purposes, rather than a free online research paper.
IMHO though, I think that sort of thing should be allowed to slide if the book does actually answer the question or contribute to the discussion. If it is an obvious shoehorning into a topic based on a keyword search or something, then no.
*minus any rules specific to a particular poster that I know there have been a few of in the past.
We may have to narrowly define “promoting.” Does that involve money? Or just widespread acceptance?
The paper in question is downloadable for no fee. So the poster/author isn’t promoting a commercial venture. I don’t have a copy of the original post, so I can’t say if it was written in first or third person, but I don’t see why that is so important.
Over 18 years, I have posted hundreds of links to stuff I have been involved in; videos, songs, web pages, whatever. I was the author and/or creator of some. You might call some “promotion,” but none generated any income for me.
OTOH, I know at least one poster who promoted her book here, and is making money from it, supposedly with mod approval. So being commercial isn’t a factor.
So is the critical criterion the length of membership time? How long should a poster be a member before being allowed to promote themselves if no money is involved? If a poster’s interest is narrow, do they have to simulate a broad interest before they are accepted?
This has always been a bit of a slippery slope around here. While one should get a Mod’s approval first, or so I’ve learned, nobody is barred from discussing things that directly profit themselves.
We have artists, writers, craftspeople and so on. For a Mod to toss out someone because they were self-promoting a scholarly work is to say the least a wee tad disingenuous. Aside from the Marketplace, folks do promote things for profit.
Perhaps we need to amend the rules of the road around here. Cecil, where are you ??
You are a member of our community. If you post something that you created here, sure, that might be a bit of self-promotion or whatever, but you didn’t sign up here solely for the purpose of linking to what you created. That is the key difference.
If you went to some message board you never went to before just because a google search took you to the same topic as your web page, and you posted a link to your web page as if you weren’t the web site’s author, and then never participated in that board ever again, that’s spamming. You were only there to promote your own web page, not to participate in that message board. Even if you don’t make money off of that web page, it’s still a form of spamming.
So posting useful, pertinent information is not OK unless you participate in further activities with no relevance. Got it.
You want spam? Today, I got a phone call from:
[ol][]A “Microsoft” employee who said my computer was sending out error messages and he could fix it if I let him take control of my computer[]A pseudo-veteran’s organization that wanted a donation to fix the boss’ yacht[]“Heather” who said she could lower my interest rates[]A caller from “Tax Services” who wanted to warn me about fake IRS agents, but said he was the genuine article.[/ol]Now that’s spam.
Bolding mine. I think that is the relevant part. For instance, maybe if the poster opened with “Interestingly, I just wrote a paper on this subject…here it is”, it might be fine. It’s trying to obscure one’s personal link to the linked material that raises the red flags.
You’re seriously advocating that we take a softer line against spam? Because there’s absolutely no question that what the post was. I doubt you’ll get many posters who would prefer more spam on the site.
Wrong. I would personally like to know more about warez sites, HAWT Russian chicks who want to marry me, amazing homeopathic drugs that will cure what ails me, finding out the AMAZING secrets of the Hollywood celebrities, how to find out how smaller endowed guys can have their penises enlarged and Nigerian Princes with exciting!!! business offers for me.*
*Plus, given what we get (at least on an iPad) from the ad server, it’s what the site promotes anyway.
If somebody posts a scholarly paper that is entirely on topic in a GQ thread (even a zombie one) we’re considering that spam? Good grief. Who gives a shit if he didn’t want to admit to being the author? Who gives a shit if he never posted again? It’s not like he posted links to this paper in a dozen irrelevant threads across the fora. Or posted links to live streaming sports or live horny girls.
From what I can tell, his post was done on topic and in the spirit of fighting ignorance. This is the stupidest definition of “spam” I’ve ever seen. Dude stumbled across us because of a topic that was of interest to him, and shared something he had written. Even if it was self-promotional, and even if he was coy about being the author, it was informational-- isn’t that basically job one around here? Posting informational shit? Fighting ignorance? Welcoming people who are knowledgeable?
