People just to push their own personal hobby horse

New member joins and her first post is a huge spiel regarding animal cruelty and please sign petitions here and here and tell all your friends etc.

Their cause I can accept. Their method of using the board just for furtherance of their pet cause I don't accept. However I let it run for a few days and it degenerated so I moved it to a section where people can argue their heads off. Of course then I got the PM's from the originator, why have you moved it etc. Now I don't try to reason with people in this scenario it gives them more to argue against so she was told I did it because I considered it appropriate and that she was welcome to set up her own forum and put it slap bang in the middle. Back came the PM yes but why did you move it so by now I'm into short and sweet mode..I moved it because I can...learn to live with it. Next thing I know the private PM is posted on the open board. Ok thats the excuse I needed and thread deleted. PM's are personal as their name says any PM's posted in the open will be deleted without regard to content.

Fortunately I get one or two cases like this a year so not a major problem but I'm sure some of you must have similar and perhaps more volatile examples. How do you react?

subject should read People join your board just to push a personal hobbyhorse

 

Haven't really experienced this to a large degree. I have my own causes, and animal cruelty is one of them, but it would have been a close call on this. First post that is advertising something like this is often seen as spam. I think you should have explained this to the person and moved on from there.

 

There is a modification for VBulletin.org to handle such people - its called "one touch spam ban and clean up."

What it does, the script bans the person, bans their IP, deletes all of the post, and deletes all of their private messages.

And that is how I would handle that situation on my forum.

 

It depends on the forum and the cause; if it was in line with what the members are interested in I'd allow it.

 

I wouldn't call it "spam" directly, no.
It really does, as others said, depend on the context of the forum, and the poster.

As far as the harassment via PM, you were way too kind. Any time a member questions an admin move via PM, it's short and sweet time. If they get pissy, it's out the door time. Admins take far too much abuse from members, privately, and publicly, over how they handle their forums, unfortunately.

 

just to put it into context in 3 years and 2500 threads the subject has come up 4 times and just run it's course. So there is some relevance to the board but it's much the same relevance that a forum about beer talks about water (or perhaps less)

Poster was an absolute first time poster out of the blue and not related to any existing members.

 

Any chance you could convert the one-post wonder to a regular member? Maybe it's an opportunity.

 

in theory you are right Soliloquy she could convert to a regular member
in theory jumping off the Empire State building is a great way to get a unique view of New York
It's the bit that follows which will probably turn out to be a mistake in both cases and muggins here would be in the middle of all the mess in both cases

As I said she wasn't deleted as a member or even temporarily banned so she can come back and post if she wants to.

 

Might be at that, if you were a BASE jumper No, I understand she might not make a good member, considering the poor first impression she made. But I have had some success when regular members start talking to them and explaining what kinds of posts we do like to see. Occasionally they'll want to fit in.

 

Nice Mod :thumbup:

 

It annoys me I did the work for my site, they should do the work for hteir causes.

People are welcome to contact me to discuss things further if they have something that matches with my site - but not when they do what they did with you. Ban their arse lol!

 

They probably do see it as doing the work for their causes. Sometimes vocal people like that make the best members.

 

These kind of ones are hard. I get them not regularly, but i certainly have had them in the past. I tend to stick with the 'it's spam' if it's their first ever post.

If it's someone who has been on the site for a while, and is a regular - then i'll probably allow it.

 

I agree it is a form of spam and should be dealt with as such....we have had a few such threads creaed by first timers and we simply remove the thread and nothing comes of it but if a repeat thread is posted then we deal with the said member accordingly from a friendly pm to a removal from the board.

 

Something like this generally wouldn't be condoned on my forums. Somebody joining and posting for the sole purpose of advertising their cause (no matter what it is) is just like spamming (in my opinion) so it would either be locked or deleted, and the user would be handled appropriately.

My forum is a discussion board, not a billboard.

 

Well I would have acted in steps.

1: Delete the post and ask to poster to poste a more user friendly version of it. Or at least with a nice hidden spoiler.
2: They don't listen=1 day ban and another friendly request.
3: Don't listen yet? Permaban.

I'm reasonable if they wish to talk with me. If they don't... Well I have no tolerance for it.