it seems that this discussion doesnt have much point, as the die seem to be already cast, but let me answer your questions, since you ask politely:Adric wrote: let me get this straight... You are saying that the spam on these boards to buy stuff for cell-phones and what not are not really an attempt for us to buy cell phone stuff, but just to increase the rating for these boards? Why then advertise stuff. They could just type "Spam" and not even bother typing anything else. Why would they care if this board has a higher rating?
Anywho, while i understand your idea about a "boilerplate" question, in many cases this would not be practical. Lets say i visit a board on dog care. I decide to register, and the question is, i don;t know, lets say "What is the name of the Admin's Dog"... Well, how would I know? And how would I find this out... The board I run has an easy way of deciding if they should be allowed to register --- If you aren't in the Guild, you can register and use the general board, but until you get approved for the "Guild Member" Group, you can't see any of the real board... And once you are approved, the general board is no longer visible, so that issue goes away as real members can't even see the spam that is being posted. So basicaly as you can see, it varies from case to case as to what admins can do on individual boards... And besides, as soon as the events system is implimented, it will be incredibly easy to ban and delete posts from such users...
0) i am not sure you understand the rating point. the junk posting do not increase the rating for YOUR site. it increases the rating for the sites being advertised. this have to do with the algorithm google and other search engines use to rate web-sites: the more external links to the site exist, the higher the site's ranking.
1) i did not say that all spammers dont want clicks. i said that some (and by a non-scientific method, i think most) of them are looking mainly to increase their google ranking.
why do i say that?
well, there are many robotic registrations that add a web-site to their profile, and never post. my anecdotal impression is that this phenomenon is more common than the junk posting.
the only motivation i could think of for this behavior is to increase the google rating for their site.
even the spammers that do post with ads, seems (again, this is anecdotal observation) just to cram dozens of web-sites into one post, without bothering to create an atractive add with text and images.
so, my conclusion is that even if google rating is not the spammers only motivation, it is definitely one of their reasons to spam, and in many cases, their main reason.
2) as to your comment about the boilerplate question idea: i said that it may not be useful to all boards, but it will be good for many, and i did give a couple of examples. you say that it will be useless for many boards. i think we are both right. (btw: same thing is right for many other features: many boards may not want to enable attachments, most will not need passworded forums, etc. etc.)
3) the rest of your post seems to indicate that spamming is not a real problem. here we do not agree. i think spamming is a huge problems, and many board admins spends more time on dealing with spam than on any other part of the board management.
as i said earlier, the "boilerplate question" for registration AND posting should be an easy MOD to make, and will be just as effective as a mod as it will be if its in the core, so the subject is not that important.
otoh, rel='nofollow' as a mod makes no sense at all, and since it is not going to be in the core, the idea is practically dead.
have a good one.
