Since Spam has come up as a recent issue again...
Spamming can take on several forms. Here are the two most encountered on this forum.
1) Coming here and posting stuff everyone knows is spam like porn, drug sales, your idea of religious Utopia etc. This is the form most of us think of when we here the word "spam."
2) Posting rapidly to several threads in succession simply to increase your post count. This is a form George and I have encountered here already and we have deleted a couple fairly new members as a result.
Posting in rapid fire succession without adding anything really informative to the forum simply to boost your post count so you can post in "Shop and Swap," or just for the sake of having more posts is SPAM.
Make no mistake, this behavior will not be tolerated. If you are not here to add anything to the knowledge base of this forum, to help other like-minded rockhounds, and to learn something, and you simply just want to sell your stuff, then please don't post here.
This forum is a place for everyone to get together to enjoy rocks, lapidary and jewelry making and all processes inbetween. It was not designed to be a selling platform, it was not designed to be a contest to see how many posts you can accumulate in a half hour period of time.
Can you post stuff for sale in the Shop and Swap section? Yes, but only if you have reached 50 posts and only if you are a contributing member of the forum. You cannot be simply posting for the sake of posting to get to the magic number of fifty so you can just post your sales and drop off the face of the forum. If we feel that you are posting simply to get that 50 post limit to start selling, then your selling privileges will be removed and other disciplinary action might ensue.
We love our forum members. We're a great family here. We have a lot of commerce that happens behind the scenes via PM that is truly awesome. We encourage that. I engage in it myself even! But what we all love the most about this forum is how we all help each other, how we all post for the common good.
To that end, should you see someone posting in an odd manner you don't think is appropriate, please contact BOTH George and I. We shall take it from there, access the situation and verify if any action needs to be taken. Also, if you don't feel comfortable coming to us, go to one of our wonderful section moderators with your concern and they will then let us know. Your section moderators are Hummingbirdstones, Michael Hoover and Catmandew. We work as a large team to keep this forum a wonderful place. Do not hesitate to contact us should another poster's behavior look suspicious or something doesn't seem right. That is what we are here for.[/u]
