Spammer and Sigpo notification thread?

xw2lj9uspm1eyh

First off sorry mods if this is in the wrong forum or been posted before I did check back through the last few pages to see if this was brought up.Just wondering why non-mods are allowed to post in these threads reporting users isn't this a form of backseat modding?

I know it's handy for admins if someone reports a spammer or someones sig is too big etc.But if a user gets a warning for spamming or sig is removed checks the thread to see someone reporting them that isn't a mod this might cause tension even though the reported user is completely in the wrong.

Another scenario if someone has an argument with another user.Notices his\her sig is too big for instance and posts in the notification thread isn't this just stirring the pot between the two users.


I know there would be genuine people that would report someone and not do it for oneupmanship.Maybe I'm completely in the wrong but isn't this what the report button is for to report spammers etc etc for users so why is there a need for non-mods to be replying to these threads.Besides if a user gets it wrong and uses the report button instead of posting in the thread a mod sees it and takes no notice instead of clogging up the threads with bad calls.

Rabies

The spammer thread is good. Helps the Admins find the 'tards the forums really easy. Some spammer and shill posts contain porn links. As much as I love a bit of pron here and there, we can't have it all over the site.

The sig thread is a personal hate of mine. On the positive side people point out usually new posters with massive sigs. Thats a good thing. On the other side, there is now a "team" of people scouring the site looking for any little reason to report sig issues.

"OMG, ur sig is 5 pixels 2 wide!!"

Over all, it is to help the site

Tom Dunne

mendusa wrote: »

isn't this a form of backseat modding?

Not really. On a thread, in a forum, commenting on somebody else's post is backseat modding. In this forum, in that thread is a different kettle of fish altogether.

Do you see the difference?

mendusa wrote: »

but isn't this what the report button is for to report spammers etc etc for users so why is there a need for non-mods to be replying to these threads

The Report Post button notifies the forum mods. What if they are not around? It is conceivable that the CMod and mods are not around, so if the Admins can step in and delete any offensive/spammy posts.

So it's kinda like a second round of defence against spammers.

Spiritoftheseventies

I don't really see what the fuss is about here. If posters sig is too big or isnt dont conform to standards, poster changes it, end of. As I have had to do.
Why posters take it so personally is beyond me. It matters not one iota why the post is reported.

_blank_

Rabies wrote: »

The sig thread is a personal hate of mine. On the positive side people point out usually new posters with massive sigs. Thats a good thing. On the other side, there is now a "team" of people scouring the site looking for any little reason to report sig issues.

"OMG, ur sig is 5 pixels 2 wide!!"

I can fathom no reason why anyone, anyone, would report sigs that slightly bend the rules a bit. It's idiotic pedantry at best, and malicious nastiness at worst.

Fair enough, if someone has a huge picture of a dead child as their sig, it should be probably taken down.

As for the idea of SigPo as a whole. Twats, the lot of them. Brown-nosing, lick-arse twats.

What do they get out of it? A warm fuzzy feeling when an Admin admonishes someone for having a slightly-too-large picture?

Seriously? Get a bleedin' life, have you nothing better to be doing than inspecting other people's sigs? If sigs bother you that much, turn them bleedin off.

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

I don't really see what the fuss is about here. If posters sig is too big or isnt dont conform to standards, poster changes it, end of. As I have had to do.
Why posters take it so personally is beyond me. It matters not one iota why the post is reported.

Nope, you don't HAVE to do anything.

you report the sigs of people you have perceived to have wronged you in a petty attempt to "get them back".

I find sigpo to go against the spirit of boards.

It seems that there is a culture similar to the Guards in that it feels like there has to be a "quota". It seems that sigs are getting reported every day and most of these sigs are harmless.

Sigs that are obviously too big or that are eyesores etc are obviously going to be reported and dealt with. But we don't need a bunch of "do gooders" (rats if you ask me) hopping around all day reporting several sigs a day. It screams of a petty "I'm telling the teacher" sort of attitude and creates no feel good atmosphere on the boards. And as Des said it seems to be used as a sort of revenge tool for some petty childish users.

Without naming any names there are a few posters who I have no time for at all as a result of their behaviour in the sigpo notification thread.

event

i didnt know such a thing as sigpo existed until a few months ago and im here nearly 5 years. i couldnt believe people would ever bother to do that

i think its very sad altogether, people actually look at other peoples sigs, check them and report them if they break the rules?

there are not enough smilies on boards to sum that up.

what is the point?

ShiverinEskimo

event wrote: »

what is the point?

It's the closest many of these sad bastards will get to ever being a mod.

These are same type of wannabes that put themselves forward to be hall monitor/prefect in school - generally just cúnts with no mates.

Spiritoftheseventies

Des wrote: »

you report the sigs of people you have perceived to have wronged you in a petty attempt to "get them back".

And you know this for a fact Des do you. Dont even know half the posters i have reported.
End of the day its up to the poster to make sure his sig meets the criteria.
Same applies to me.

ShiverinEskimo

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

End of the day its up to the poster to make sure his sig meets the criteria.

Exactly. It's up to the poster - not you.

I went into the thread and saw you reported a picture that was 1k over the 20k limit. Not cool man. So not cool.

Spiritoftheseventies

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Exactly. It's up to the poster - not you.

I went into the thread and saw you reported a picture that was 1k over the 20k limit. Not cool man. So not cool.

Again Shivering Eskimo I have had to change my sig when it was too big. It takes two or three minutes to change it.
And lets say you make it an exception for 21kb. That becomes 22 kb tomorrow and so on.

Spiritoftheseventies

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Again Shivering Eskimo I have had to change my sig when it was too big. It takes two or three minutes to change it.
And lets say you make it an exception for 21kb. That becomes 22 kb tomorrow and so on.

Are you always so contrary? Actually. No need to answer that. Like I already said, being THAT petty goes against the good community spirit of boards IMO and it also generates a lot of ill will towards certain people who really do themselves no favours (and I'm not exclusively referring to you here before you ask)

ShiverinEskimo

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Again Shivering Eskimo I have had to change my sig when it was too big. It takes two or three minutes to change it.
And lets say you make it an exception for 21kb. That becomes 22 kb tomorrow and so on.

No one has a problem with the rules SOTS. They have a problem with how a collection of posters feel the need to go around hunting for offenders like the gestapo.

I'm not having a go at you personally by the way but I just cannot comprehend how you or anyone else feels they need to go to the effort to report a picture that is 1k above the recommeneded size. It makes no difference to your day whatsoever and visually the picture would be the same if saved in a better format (png, jpg, gif etc.).

Can you not see how that irks people no?

My name is URL

SigPo is crap, as Neil said, it goes against the spirit of Boards. If the policing of sigs and enforcement of the rules pertaining to them is that bloody important then write a bot that simply deletes offending sigs

Spiritoftheseventies

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

No one has a problem with the rules SOTS. They have a problem with how a collection of posters feel the need to go around hunting for offenders like the gestapo.

I'm not having a go at you personally by the way but I just cannot comprehend how you or anyone else feels they need to go to the effort to report a picture that is 1k above the recommeneded size. It makes no difference to your day whatsoever and visually the picture would be the same if saved in a better format (png, jpg, gif etc.).

Can you not see how that irks people no?

That sig you are talking about stood out. And I have come out before and said that people who put some effort into their sigs should be acknowledged.
But really all poster has to do to check if sigpo is okay is click on image properties. Takes two seconds.

The Recliner

Do we even need this thread with its level of bile

Sigs and things associated with them are being talked about in Feedforward, if anyone has anything positive to suggest about them it should be posted there

Spiritoftheseventies

The Recliner wrote: »

Do we even need this thread with its level of bile

Sigs and things associated with them are being talked about in Feedforward, if anyone has anything positive to suggest about them it should be posted there

Well I think what Overheal says below is a good idea.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65756196&postcount=46

What I think should happen though re the other stuff is that reporting sigs should be done via report post and mod then passes it on the admin. Seems the easiest thing to do and there is less strife all round.

event

The Recliner wrote: »

Do we even need this thread with its level of bile

Sigs and things associated with them are being talked about in Feedforward, if anyone has anything positive to suggest about them it should be posted there

the discussion threads there seemed to be closed now though

hopefully they will make changes to the rules though, it could eradicate the need for the Sigpo

Spiritoftheseventies

End of the day there has to be a limit on how big your image can be. The main problem is that a 66 kb image maybe the same size re height and width as a 20kb sig but may be denser in colour.
I would take out the size limit myself and just restrict it to 500 x125. Would maybe allow 5 pixels either way to give posters the benefit of the doubt.

event

oh i have no doubt there needs to be restrictions on sigs, obviously.

but maybe a way of vetting them before people use them, it would mean people arent reported by someone for being 1k over a file size. it is a very poor side to boards IMO

ShiverinEskimo

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Would maybe allow 5 pixels either way to give posters the benefit of the doubt.

Yet 1kb cannot be classed under 'benefit of the doubt' according to your report in the sigpo thread.

As previously said - people have no problem with the rules, its the system of reporting that is flawed as it encourages one small set of posters to go about ratting users out. It's counter-intuitive to the kind of online community boards promotes.

Spiritoftheseventies

ShiverinEskimo wrote: »

Yet 1kb cannot be classed under 'benefit of the doubt' according to your report in the sigpo thread.

As previously said - people have no problem with the rules, its the system of reporting that is flawed as it encourages one small set of posters to go about ratting users out. It's counter-intuitive to the kind of online community boards promotes.

At same time if you notify a poster that you are reporting their post (which used to be the procedure but the rule has been relaxed a bit now) they wont take it kindly either as what happened to me awhile back.
Again if this can be done privately it cuts out a lot of the stuff that has been going on in last month.
It makes no difference if mod sees sig or I do. Mod makes the ultimate decision.

Kiera

Des wrote: »

As for the idea of SigPo as a whole. Twats, the lot of them. Brown-nosing, lick-arse twats.

What do they get out of it? A warm fuzzy feeling when an Admin admonishes someone for having a slightly-too-large picture?

Seriously? Get a bleedin' life, have you nothing better to be doing than inspecting other people's sigs? If sigs bother you that much, turn them bleedin off.

em?

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62413635&postcount=3694

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61604786&postcount=3629

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61028363&postcount=3588

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60012989&postcount=3517

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58110144&postcount=3279

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57653933&postcount=3188

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57633692&postcount=3187

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=55461586&postcount=2574

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=55077968&postcount=2455

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54020182&postcount=2185

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53864067&postcount=2132

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53851717&postcount=2124

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53657784&postcount=2050

So, not only have you been insulting other users, you are being hypocritical.

In your own words:

Des wrote:

If sigs bother you that much, turn them bleedin off.

Spiritoftheseventies

Kiera wrote: »

em?

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=62413635&postcount=3694

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61604786&postcount=3629

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=61028363&postcount=3588

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=60012989&postcount=3517

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=58110144&postcount=3279

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57653933&postcount=3188

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=57633692&postcount=3187

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=55461586&postcount=2574

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=55077968&postcount=2455

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=54020182&postcount=2185

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53864067&postcount=2132

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53851717&postcount=2124

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=53657784&postcount=2050

So, not only have you been insulting other users, you are being hypocritical.

In your own words:

21 posts in all. And he was in his right to report them. But not right to singling out others doing it. Large case of Kettle pot black here.

Kiera

Kiera wrote: »

So, not only have you been insulting other users, you are being hypocritical.

In your own words:

To be fair, you've gone out of your way to have a go here. You've neglected to acknowledge that he also said:

Des wrote: »

I can fathom no reason why anyone, anyone, would report sigs that slightly bend the rules a bit. .........

Fair enough, if someone has a huge picture of a dead child as their sig, it should be probably taken down...............

Do we have any idea of the size of any of those sigs that Des reported? My guess is that he didn't report any thing that was 1kb over for sure.

I do remember Des was modding a forum and one user had a MASSIVE sig (like those infuriating ''I'm awesome x 1000 times'' groups on Facebook, and after asking the user several times to remove it he reported it. I remember it specifically because I posted in the thread. Undfortunately the topic eludes me and trawling through Des' posts to find it would take the whole summer!

The point is, I'm pretty sure the posts reported by Des were the obnoxiously large ones, which is fair enough IMO, and that side of sigpo I agree with. The side of sigpo I most certainly do not agree with is where you have a select few who seem to spend half of their day looking for sigs to report. I'd guestimate that 99% of the sigs reported would be deemed harmless by 99% of the users on boards. But looking at the thread you'd think boards had a huge problem with giant sigs, which it doesn't.

So why then is that thread so freakin busy?

The Recliner

Kiera wrote: »

em?

So, not only have you been insulting other users, you are being hypocritical.

In your own words:

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

21 posts in all. And he was in his right to report them. But not right to singling out others doing it. Large case of Kettle pot black here.

I don't think so

Des pointed out that he sees reporting of sigs as ok when they are in clear breach of rules

He was giving out about people who report tiny breaches of the rules

Des wrote: »

I can fathom no reason why anyone, anyone, would report sigs that slightly bend the rules a bit. It's idiotic pedantry at best, and malicious nastiness at worst.

Fair enough, if someone has a huge picture of a dead child as their sig, it should be probably taken down.

Spiritoftheseventies

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

21 posts in all. And he was in his right to report them. But not right to singling out others doing it. Large case of Kettle pot black here.

No there isn't because like I just said, Des isn't running around reporting sigs for being 1kb over.


So no, unfortunately this one doesn't prove you right.

Spiritoftheseventies

Have to admit there was one poster on sigpo thread whose high post count I noticed. But now i see where he is coming from.
Admins dont have time to check every sig. We are not mercenaries here. No money changes hands. No thirty pieces of silver.
End of the day if a poster takes lets five minutes putting a signature together he can take an extra minute to make sure it meets all the requirements.

Spiritoftheseventies

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Have to admit there was one poster on sigpo thread whose high post count I noticed. But now i see where he is coming from.

There are a number of people in there who could do with a new hobby or a girlfriend alright.

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

Admins dont have time to check every sig. We are not mercenaries here. No money changes hands. No thirty pieces of silver.

No, but those who persistently rat people out do get that feeling of having some kind of power. Or whatever they get out of it.

Remember, that kid that everyone hated back in school who used to tell on everyone for any little thing wasn't getting paid either?

Bit of a strange point to be fair.

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

End of the day if a poster takes lets five minutes putting a signature together he can take an extra minute to make sure it meets all the requirements.

True, and fair enough. Just like taking the extra minute every day to retype your password reduces the odds of someone else being able to access your account/profile etc, but that remember password button is very tempting isn't it? And most people's lives don't revolve around boards/the internets, so most people will go with common sense instead as it's quicker. And common sense will usually see people staying under the limit. However the odd time they might be out by 1kb.

As far as I'm concerned as long as they're using common sense then the sigpo job is mundane. Sigpo itself could do with a bit of common sense. Some of the rats on sigpo could do with doing themselves a favour and nipping it in the bud unless the sig is an obvious eyesore.

Spiritoftheseventies

You are getting stuck on that 1kb. Its not the issue here. The size involves density of sig as well so its irrelevant really that it was 1kb over.
Again most posters who are asked to change their sig do so with minimum fuss. But there are also the postes who go on as if they have had their car impounded.
If you look at the history of the sigpo thread there were folks complaining about it five years ago.
The fact that it is now five years old says that for all its critics, the sigpo notify thread has been a success.

Overheal

The Sigpo is a success because it has run for a couple years now in what I would consider Peace Time: nobody really bored enough to trawl through Threads, scan people's sigs and make sure they're up to par by a few Bytes or Pixels. When people do spring up on sigpo its to report something thats largely distracting.

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

That sig you are talking about stood out.

I dont know how you can possibly claim to "see" a sig being 1kb over the limit. Are you Neo?

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

I would take out the size limit myself and just restrict it to 500 x125. Would maybe allow 5 pixels either way to give posters the benefit of the doubt.

Then why are you policing people for being 1px or 1kb out of place if you agree that its bull****?

the mind boggles.