Well, as I run a general chat forum, I'm pretty lenient about this in 90% of discussions. So this has never really been much of a problem for me. Although I know a lot more professionaly ran forums outside of general chat are a bit more stricter about this, though.
Pretty much. Like if all they do is post in 'shorty' threads (hello/goodbye, what are you listening to) and make short responses then I would contact them or ban them. However, if they have made several very beneficial posts to the forum I would keep them on. Because not everyone logs on and posts page long stories, and everyone has their down days.
What you do is put sections like that under the banner of "posting here does not raise your post counts" and turn them off for that section.
For signatures on my forum, we actually have it to where you can't have a signature until you make so many posts and are taken out of the newly registered users group. Sure, I'd be complaining about this too, but this is why: 1. Spam. When Chatting Time opened up in August of 2010, we were hit with loads of spam. Not in the form of signatures, but it was bad. 2. Viruses. We also have this measurement in place on account of viruses. You never know when someone will post a dangerous link with a virus or trojan that could harm your computer or PC. This is actually the main reason why we have this in place. We've been getting a fair amount of complaints, but we are not removing this restriction as this is there to protect members from hurtful sites that can cause a virus or something much worse.
I hate them. Especially when you use every mod that you can find and every hack you can find to keep them away from your site, and somehow they still manage to post a legit looking post that you find on your site weeks later only to notice the spam is to a porn site! And then you wonder how many people actually saw the post and feel embarrased by it.
I'd be pissed if someone did something like that on my forum! Thankfully we don't have a post requirement for VIP permissions. At least, I don't think we do, anyways. All I know is at the moment the only way someone would get VIP access is if it's a contest prize or whatever.
Have experienced this in my forum before, but well, i will PM them personally, and tell them to stop. I will also probably delete their posts they spammed.
It's not worth asking them to stop, because the chances are that they won't as personally I don't think you need those kind of people at your forum.
