Profile Feed Misuse

Hello every one. As a result of user complaints and some internal staff discussion, we've decided that the usage of profile feed posting could do with some extra guidelines. These aren't going to be very strenuous at all, mainly the aim is cut back on low-value spam. Some examples of things I/we don't want to see very much from now on (that aren't against the rules to begin with) include:
-Countdowns, especially countdowns to nothing (already being infracted)
-One word update "stories"
-Reposting something someone else has said unchanged or with slight edits (exceptions may be made when it's actually funny rather than just forced irony)
-Any other types of pointless spam about nothing

The other staff can weigh in on this further if they wish. The way I see it there's nothing inherently wrong about posting links or one-liners in profile feed (one word might be pushing it), or posting fairly regular updates. As is usually the case, what it comes down to is a need for some improvement in the quality vs quantity department. And if someone wants to make a new one-word story thread in Forum-Based Games, they can do that instead


P.S.: I've already had to go into the permissions and change them so I could even make a thread here so hopefully regular users can at least respond normally, I can't remember if that was already an issue or not

 

A moment of silence, for the sweet silence we'll be getting in the profile feed.

Thank you, mods!

 

-Any other types of pointless spam about nothing

i love it when rules are vague and completely up to staff interpretation, very nice k_hand_lol:

 

i love it when rules are vague and completely up to staff interpretation, very nice k_hand_lol:

thats the idea
there's no way we could possibly enumerate all the bad posts people are capable of so take a healthy dollop of "Common Sense cream". If the answer to the question "Is this going to piss off the staff/everyone else" is yes then perhaps consider keeping it to yourself

 

thats the idea
there's no way we could possibly enumerate all the bad posts people are capable of so take a healthy dollop of "Common Sense cream". If the answer to the question "Is this going to piss off the staff/everyone else" is yes then perhaps consider keeping it to yourself

this post made me amgrey, so with the power vested in me as an Internet Forum Moderator™ i will label it as spam and remove it

 

Just keep in mind that there are other cases where your post will answer no to that question, and still be breaking the rules.

Cant this be said about anything really.

 

Spoiler: when the moderation hits the spam just right

the forums sing

At long last, the day has come. Totally on board with this change.

 

I know I'm one of the guys who was pushing it here and there but I'm all for discouraging/infracting these from now on.

It was getting way out of hand.

 

Appreciated. I’m one of those people who only talks due to nervousness when silence starts to fill a room, but I think intermittent medium-quality blather is a better environment overall than constant noise.

 

The profile feed definitely was getting way out of hand, especially the riffing/meming of someone’s words in the profile feed itself. Not to say that all of it originated from the profile feed, but it was vexing after a while to see the same thing copied over again, with slight variations and even times a complete disregard to some of what appeared to be legitimate posts.

Question about the countdown posting: it refers to posts counting down in a consecutive number of days, hours and minutes, with one unit per post, right? Suppose I made a post that said, “I can’t wait for two weeks until <some game I’m really excited for> comes out” with a link to its trailer/Steam page etc. and this is the first time I’m mentioning this. Then I don’t post anything else until the game actually comes out. Would this be considered an infraction because I’m mentioning a time until something happens? Or would that sort of posting be allowed?

 

The profile feed definitely was getting way out of hand, especially the riffing/meming of someone’s words in the profile feed itself. Not to say that all of it originated from the profile feed, but it was vexing after a while to see the same thing copied over again, with slight variations and even times a complete disregard to some of what appeared to be legitimate posts.

Question about the countdown posting: it refers to posts counting down in a consecutive number of days, hours and minutes, with one unit per post, right? Suppose I made a post that said, “I can’t wait for two weeks until <some game I’m really excited for> comes out” with a link to its trailer/Steam page etc. and this is the first time I’m mentioning this. Then I don’t post anything else until the game actually comes out. Would this be considered an infraction because I’m mentioning a time until something happens? Or would that sort of posting be allowed?

It's a countdown sure, but it has a greater value when you show a link to the steam page and then not say anything else, I would see that as a legitimate post, somebody links to steam, excited about something and won't mention it until it's release. But if you do this kind of post for 2 weeks straight then we'd have problems.

 

The profile feed definitely was getting way out of hand, especially the riffing/meming of someone’s words in the profile feed itself. Not to say that all of it originated from the profile feed, but it was vexing after a while to see the same thing copied over again, with slight variations and even times a complete disregard to some of what appeared to be legitimate posts.

Question about the countdown posting: it refers to posts counting down in a consecutive number of days, hours and minutes, with one unit per post, right? Suppose I made a post that said, “I can’t wait for two weeks until <some game I’m really excited for> comes out” with a link to its trailer/Steam page etc. and this is the first time I’m mentioning this. Then I don’t post anything else until the game actually comes out. Would this be considered an infraction because I’m mentioning a time until something happens? Or would that sort of posting be allowed?

To me it sounds like a "x days until ()" post is fine as long as there is given context about what you're counting down for, and as long as you dont do it every day.

 

Miccs is correct. I couldn't have said it any better.

 

Why is this necessary? The forum rules state that "no blatant spam posts are allowed", surely this applies to profile feeds? Why weren't the users engaging in this behavior punished?

 

None of the rules (except the nsfw/illegal content rules) applied to the profile feed until now. Hell, there was no feed when the rules were written, profile posts were safely tucked away under user profile pages back then where nobody could see them unless they went looking.

 

This doesn't affect profile comments, just profile posts. So yes, this only applies to the main feed.

 

So despite the fact the forum rules state "any instances of flaming/trolling/personal attacks or anything else the staff deems inappropriate will not be tolerated and will be dealt with immediately", the profile feed has essentially been unmoderated since its inception.

Perhaps the profile feed should not be displayed on the main page if users are continually posting low quality content there. Policing it seems of little benefit to the community.