Suggestion Addition to Terms of Service?

[NYCNaiad]

There have been a spate of posts by a few individuals who create a new post & then never return to discuss it. It appears likely that they are using the posts as a method to create drama or as an under-the-radar way of advertising. However, these posts still fall within the current SB Terms of Service (ToS). So I'd like to suggest an addition.

In the ToS, it notes: "Our focus is to advance safety, knowledge and enjoyment within the diving community by encouraging the mutual exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions". I recommend that an additional line item be included in the document noting: "A pattern of original posts without any additional participation is considered spam and will not be tolerated."

Don't get me wrong. I've enjoyed some of the discussions that ensued from these posts. However, I think it's important that the original poster participate at least once in a while too.

 

[ronscuba]

Sounds like you are describing an internet troll.

Sometimes they are obvious, other times it is harder to tell. Is the person really a troll, just argumentative, socially awkward and cannot help themselves or they really believe their opinion is the only right opinion ?

 

[NYCNaiad]

Sounds like you are describing an internet troll.

Sometimes they are obvious, other times it is harder to tell. Is the person really a troll, just argumentative, socially awkward and cannot help themselves or they really believe their opinion is the only right opinion ?

In some cases. In other cases, they fall into more of the marketing category. Either way, if they are creating new posts every week & never engaging in the discussion, it's purely self aggrandizement & no longer an exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions.

 

[Steve_C]

TOS should not require participating. Perhaps the poster had a question, sees from the discussion that the question was answered or that they have nothing to add so they just keep their fingers shut. Seems like a difficult rule to enforce. Better to just handle the bad cases when they occur. It is a private board.

 

[Reku]

This is a non issue. There are far too few of them to really make any negative impact on this board - like Steve said - handle them on a case by case basis.

 

[Diver0001]

In some cases. In other cases, they fall into more of the marketing category. Either way, if they are creating new posts every week & never engaging in the discussion, it's purely self aggrandizement & no longer an exchange of experiences, ideas and opinions.

Well.... we've had users before who were over the top with "self aggrandizement" but they were not the ones using the board for marketing purposes. The truly self aggrandizing users we've seen over the years are hard to miss and normally they don't post a thread and then ignore it.... they post in EVERY THREAD and make the whole discussion about them.

While I understand that you (and probably others) find it irritating to see posts made for "click bait", the policies in place do not prohibit this provided the post is scuba related (as well as the site where it links). Scubaboard does not have a desire to make it difficult for legitimate businesses who have something to sell to this population (who may be interested in buying it) to connect with potential customers.

That said, if it gets to the point that it is disruptive then moderators will find a need to intervene. Usually this takes the form of coaching those users how to not be making a nuisance of themselves. In the case of "drive by marketing" where a user is starting a thread in order to draw attention to their products, the advice would be to not read that thread, or if the user is REALLY irritating you, to put them on your "ignore" list so that you never see their posts at all.

R..