I have a very negative reaction to staff approving these posts.
Note also the side effect: all spammers need to do is to announce that staff have approved this post which will result in Dopers no longer reporting them.
A brand new join date is a dead giveaway. Also, only paid members can post an OP in the marketplace.
Spammers have no idea of the board rules, customs or culture. Do you really believe they study their targets first?
It’s still spammy, approved or not. It’s unrestrained posting with intent to profit.
From the description of The Marketplace forum.
Why it was also allowed in this case in MPSIMS, I don’t know. I was a bit puzzled at that.
It’s restrained in that you have to get our permission first to post this.
i think a mod note of approval in the thread or better in the OP will reduce reports of spamming.
This is one of the very few instances where we allow crossposting.
Why? Because there’s Dopers that could use a job.
That’s reason enough for us to not only allow this but encourage it.
We discuss these situations before they appear on the board; anything that just appears without us knowing about it in advance is obviously not playing by the rules and we’d be on it, just as we are on all other spam or other abuse of the message board system.
Yes, it is. And yes it is.
We have had a policy of allowing requests like this with prior staff approval for many years. No real spammer that I have ever seen has mentioned that the admin has approved his post; they don’t bother reading registration agreements or rules. Your concerns in this regard are unfounded.
Onomatopoeia has been a member for more than eight years and has over 4,000 posts. In approving such requests, we take into account whether the request comes from a longstanding member of our community, and also whether the request may be of benefit to other members of our community. We’re unlikely to approve a request from someone who hasn’t participated here before.
I have no problem with this.
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Onomatopoeia is a longtime member with a good posting history.
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Prior permission was sought and given.
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It’s in an appropriate forum, the Marketplace.
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It’s of benefit to other Dopers. Not that they’d necessarily be given preference for the job, but it brings an opening to their attention they might not see through other means.
Also, link to the thread for everyone’s benefit:
(So that people know what this thread is about, not to be a shill. 
)
Edited: Ninja’d by Colibri!
From Merriam Webster:
It’s not spam.
Its not got much spam in it.
My reaction when I saw the poster being Onomatopoeia with over 4,000 posts was that a spammer had stolen his ID.
I don’t recall that kind of thing happening either. Spammers don’t make that kind of effort.
[QUOTE=Oxford Dictionary - American English (US)]
unwanted or intrusive advertising on the Internet:
[/QUOTE]
(note - one of several definitions listed)
Yes, it is spam.
Just because you found one dictionary with a narrow definition doesn’t mean it’s not spam.
I have no problem with Onomatopoeia. They asked, they were given permission, they followed the instructions that they were given. My problem is with the mods/admins approving this. It’s an advertisement for commercial gain, plain and simple. It’s spam. It doesn’t belong here.
You can’t justify it by claiming that dopers are looking for jobs and would benefit from it. There are dopers looking for all kinds of things. I don’t want to wade through spams all over the place just to find the real posts. Keep this stuff in the marketplace where it belongs.
So, what should we call spam posts, then, when we report them? “If this were in an email, it would be spam”?
Look up “circling the wagons”.
If it’s pre-approved, it’s not spam. What is so hard to understand here?
Spam is in the eye of the reader. All spam is authorized by somebody.