Your Members PM Advertising - Breaking your rules

I've never really been bothered with other members advertising. But if the user is PM'ing members about a site that the user deemed inappropriate, spammy or unneeded and has reported the issue (PM reporting FTW) then I will personally PM that user and provide him with a warning. Multiple accounts will lead to PM restrictions and from there to a temp ban if not prevented.

 

After giving a warning, and then temporary PM restrictions, if they break the rule for the third time I'd say a permanent ban is appropriate considering how many times they were given a chance.

 

I've never been a person that likes to give users permanent bans. I believe in second chances and that people can change.

 

I used to be like that, unfortunately these days my patience has worn very thin, and as such I don't give out as many chances as I used to.

 

Yep same here, I was very kind and I would give people many chances and I still do but it just causes more problems than it solves.

 

I warn them once and then if they do it again, I ban them. Haven't gotten to the banning part yet, but have had my first taste of PM spam recently

 

Haha, there will be plenty more to come once your forum grows..

 

They lose the ability to use the PM system or they get banned. I suppose if it were a long-time user they may get an initial warning. PM advertising should be stomped on quickly and aggressively.

 

If a member was reported to me for spamming PMs I'd definitely take action against them. Depending on the severity of the spamming it would either be a temp ban or perm ban.

I've noticed a few people mentioned new members signing up and straight away PMing people. To reduce the risk of this: new members aren't allowed to send PMs on GameHuddle. They get permission to do so on their tenth post. While the threshold is pretty low, I think that ten posts is generally enough to work out someone's intentions on your board.

Obviously this isn't bullet proof and you do rely on your members to report spamming, but they are probably just as annoyed as you by spammers, and wont hesitate to hit that button.

 

That's the same thing I do on my community, you need 10 posts in order to access the PM system. We did this because too many people were joining up and just running away from the fact - because they can PM our users and run, and we have no idea about it, but then again, it also makes it harder for people to join up just to spam - that's why we changed ours.

 

This allows them an immediate ticket in my 'instant-ban' train. I don't allow ANYONE to abuse the PM system and sending advertising through it is a sneaky way to do this 'behind my back' and annoy my members. In this case I ban the account immediately, without any questions asked.