That’s incorrect. It was his third posting when I first stepped in and asked him to stop with the spam. His first and second links gathered no response (at the time) until it became obvious he was pushing an agenda. Then he was politely asked to follow the board rules.
To begin with, I haven’t read through Opal’s thread, nor do I recall you reporting it. It’s kind of silly to ask us why we didn’t do anything about a thread when you weren’t even sure if we saw it in the first place. Those kinds of gotcha games are tiring and serve no useful purpose.
There’s a pretty bright line between linking to a site because it’s relevant to the conversation, and linking to one hoping to promote it.
You’re misunderstanding what happened with Baldwin. As I explained above, he was asked to curtail the linking after it became obvious that he was promoting another site; up until that point, his links were not commented on or restricted.
Just hopping on this one. Opalstarted the thread promoting a web site that promoted her artwork How on gods green earth is that not considered “linking to one hoping to promote it”?
And in answer to the “it was after repeated mentions”. His first link (unrbroken) in that thread elicited a warning by you Skip.
Again - my issue that I feel you’ve not clarified is "Why was that particular one considered spam needing a warning to not do it again, and Opals not?
as to why I didn’t report the Opal thing at the time - I only was led to that thread by another discussion later in time, where some one was upset at her link not being deleted. I’ve tried searching here for what thread led me there, but, well, you know what the problems are with the search engine.
Without standing on my head, with one hand behind my back while squinting my left eye and using a telescope on the other, I cannot see why Baldwin’s link was considered Spam worthy of warning, and Opals is/was not.
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown or whatever that quote is.
Alternatively, it’s very simple. One was posted by Opalcat, gloried be her name. The other by a known troublemaker and malcontent. Can’t you see the difference?
No, Opal started a thread discussing how one of her pieces of art was featured on a web site. She then linked to that site, which is expected, because it’s relevant to the conversation. She didn’t even mention money until someone else brought it up and she responded. And reading through the thread now, I don’t see where she’s asking Dopers to buy her stuff. I do see her talking about her financial expectations in general, but she’s not asking anyone to buy her art. What she hasn’t done, and what Baldwin had, was link to the same site in numerous threads regardless of the link’s relevancy.
With due respect, that’s incorrect:
[ul]
[li]First link, 02-28-09, unedited and not mentioned by any mod.[/li][li]Second link, 03-01-09, unedited until after Baldwin was admonished for spamming (a day later). [/li][li]Third link, 03-02-09, the point in which I stepped in and asked him to stop. You’ll note that it wasn’t a warning, but a simple–but official–request. He received his first warning when he posted the same link immediately after I asked him not to.[/ul][/li]
This, too, is silly. Opal has been on the receiving end of closed threads because she failed to ask permission.
So, Baldwin mentions the site in 3 places in threads of general interest over the span of 3 days, and that’s Spam.
Opal’s mentioning several times in one thread places where folks can buy her artwork and REPEATS it in a second thread 2 days later (not in response to threads of general interest, but in her own self promotional threads) and that’s not. Odd, since you apparently also saw a problem with the second and closed it (though not removing links).
Riiiiiiight.
Since you closed the one, you saw a problem with it. You failed to delete the links, however.
We simply really disagree, strongly.
Given the lack of clarity, I would not feel comfortable linking to any other site for fear it would be considered spamming. It’ll be especially difficult to answer any call for cites, since msn.com is obviously promoting NBC, etc. and even though I have absolutely no financial interest in NBC or any of it’s affiliates, it seems that personal gain is not at all involved in the evaluation of a link.
Ya’ll have carved out an interesting niche. It’s only spam when we tell you it is. Got it. Makes it rather difficult to avoid, though.
You’re overlooking the other three times he linked to it Monday, which finally resulted in warnings after Baldwin ignored requests to stop. The pattern is what made it obvious.
I guess you’ll do a poor job of presenting your arguments in that case. I don’t think anyone else is afraid of having any link deemed spam, so this would appear to be your loss.
wring, do you really not see the difference between pimping your paintings and pimping a site that is meant to be in direct competition to this one? Or are you just hoping that TPTB admit to it so it leads to the next point in your argument?
Opal has linked to that picture so many times that new links to it are some form of Carmen San Diego game already. Carmen was in buymypainting.com that day. Hurray for Carmen. Carry on. As pointed above, she also ran afoul of the anti-pimping rules very shortly after.
Baldwin was dropping a link to domebo every other post and with domebo being a site meant to replace this one, it is no wonder that they decided to stop that at some point. The hubris of “we are not scared of the little splinter boards” can only go so long.
I don’t when folks aren’t admitting that she was “pimping”. And since most Spammers aren’t spamming with stuff that’s a competition to here, I don’t see the distinction as being relevant. Either you have a prohibtion against spam or you don’t. And I don’t see any classification that would include Baldwins and not include Opals, the contortions above included.
But at this point, I will drop the issue. It’s clear to me that the clarification isn’t one that can be codified, and it will simply be the case “it’s spam if only if and when we tell you it is”.
I, Sapo, hereby authorize Marley23 to change my username to “Sapo’s WAG about stuff” or any other change in my username or title that he deems satisfactory to cover the need for fineprint clarifying that what I am saying is just my opinion on how I see things.
No outside source. Just how I see things. Works wonders predicting my kids’ interest in my dinner menu, sucks for their gameplay interests for a given night. It really is a mixed bag.
I left the links because it was reasonable to believe Opal would contact me (or another staff member) to receive permission. It’s happened before when charity threads were closed because of a lack of permission, and I saw no reason to remove the links when, in all likelihood, the thread would have been re-opened shortly, anyway. (Once permission was granted.) We understand that people are trying to do a good thing with charity threads, so we like to work with them as reasonably as possible. It didn’t turn out that way this time, of course, but that was the thought process.
When the goal is to drive traffic to and get people to sign up at another site, you betcha it’s spam. All he needed to do was ask permission to start a thread; instead, he chose to throw the link out in several threads, regardless of the relevancy of the thread, and reacted poorly when he was told to follow the rules. He could have repeated his actions (with the same goal in mind) with links to my board, Una’s board, Opal’s board, the Snopes board, JREF, etc… and he would have been asked to stop just the same.
If you truly feel the situation is that difficult to understand, then I suppose we’ll be living without links from wring. Just don’t be surprised if you do link to CNN that no one comes down on you–much like it’s been the ten years this board’s been up and running.
I don’t see what your difficulty is here, wring. You are way off base here. He or anyone else could have asked for permission to start a thread promoting the new board. Instead, he chose to go about it all wrong.
You have been here since '05 and have therefore missed a lot of ugly history between Opalcat and the management here. The quoted statement is beyond ridiculous.
This is in fact what I meant: threats to vandalize the site, sue the company, things like that. We have no intention of going after people because they criticized the SDMB in some other venue.