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Well, ignoring formal definitions I would say that most spam will be on poster's first post. That's usually a hint.
Posts: 2705 | Registered: Sep 2006
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People get suspicious if someone posts a link advertising a product of theirs before being otherwise involved in the community. Posting a link with a message like "I thought this article was interesting, I agreed/disagreed because... What do you all think?" is entirely different however. Being a link does not necessarily mean something is spam, but trying to sell things in one way or another is.
Posts: 1547 | Registered: Jan 2004
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That's a pretty good definition. If you post something with a vested interest in people clicking on the link and have no ties to this community, I'd say it's spam.
If you've been here a little while and post a link to something you happen to think is awesome and just want to share to share the joy, then I'd say it's fine, so long as you don't just link and leave, you actually stick around to talk about whatever it is and have no personal vested interest in seeing the product or site succeed.
That's my personal view, but other than something blatent like a link n' leave, I think it's a giant grey area open to interpretation.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Spam is trying to sell things. Nice people don't use their friends as a potential source of revenue.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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I don't think that somebody who owns a restaurant is required to either turn his friends away at the door or allow them to eat for free in order to be a nice person.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I believe what Tatiana means is that it's not bad to get revenue from friends when it's beneficial to them, but is when you use them just because you're an interested party.
Posts: 2489 | Registered: Jan 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Tatiana: Spam is trying to sell things. Nice people don't use their friends as a potential source of revenue.
I think this might be more accurate as "Nice people don't deceive their friends in order to make money."
Posts: 4313 | Registered: Sep 2004
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I think that would be even more accurate as "Nice people don't deceive others in order to make money."
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Occasionally I link to F-BOD Studios stuff, which is a website from which a good friend makes her living by selling her art. Mostly in the form of snarky t-shirts, etc, featuring psychotic bunnies.
I link because I'm proud of her, and her stuff frequently makes me giggle. I studied art and am always impressed when someone manages to make a living at it, on their own terms. Also, there's a lot of wit involved in what she does.
But I don't think that's spam.
Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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But if you deceive yourself, you can persuade yourself you are nice pretty much regardless of your actual behavior.
P.S.
Norms differ on the practice of posting a link without any information on where it goes. Some people want to create a humorous experience through indicating one response and then, if someone were to go to the link, finding out what is there. I'm not such a fan of that, but people keep doing it so it must work for some of them. There's also the one word + link thing, which I find a violation of Grice's principles of relevancy.
But I'm not really sure I want to wind up in the Heaven/other place for people who have adhered to Grice throughout their lives.
The ironic thing about new member SPAM is most of it is pretty up front about where they are sending you.
On the general topic of network marketing, I'm not really sure why it is now anathema to me, whereas before 2003 it was not. I'm inclined to think people involved in it don't quite grasp what friendship is about. I still don't know what friendship is about, but I'm no longer conforming my learning process to network promoters.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Actually.... It is not nice to deceive others, but nice people frequently do things that aren't nice.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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