Can nothing be done about the spam?

[AleisterCrowley]

Dunno about 'kick him out' but I wish you'd think more about what you are posting, and where you are posting it.
Slow down a bit, and try and put a few coherent posts together rather than the 'stream of consciousness' trader talk
I genuinely can't understand most of your posts.

[tjh290633]

The problem with limiting new members post counts, is that one could be limiting the content of value

or the content is c**p. Which I think has been happening recently.

The problem is that newby members do not seem to want to "learn" the rules and just scattergun posts al over the place no matter whether they meet TLFs, the forums or even the threads rules. They also do not seem to bother to learn the tools available to them, thus posts that seem to refer to an existing post but no links so unable to actually follow the flow.

Maybe new members should be made to do "training" befor ethey are allowed to post, aka school children.

Potty training, possibly?

[SentimentRules]

Too lazy. I prefer nappies

[csearle]

Maybe SentimentRules is a bit like a wild horse that could do with being broken in? Anyway if this isn't the place for eccentrics then I don't know where is!

[SentimentRules]

Maybe SentimentRules is a bit like a wild horse that could do with being broken in? Anyway if this isn't the place for eccentrics then I don't know where is!

Broken in

I chat on around 6 forums.

Imagine if I focussed on one?

[Itsallaguess]

I chat on around 6 forums.

For the love of God, please tell us that you don't have internet access at the weekends.....

Itsallaguess

[SentimentRules]

I just deleted the other 5 forums now. Decided to just use this one because everyone is so happy

.

[SalvorHardin]

Maybe SentimentRules is a bit like a wild horse that could do with being broken in? Anyway if this isn't the place for eccentrics then I don't know where is!

If you allow a new poster to carpet bomb the site with drivel, don't be surprised if you lose a lot of posters who actually know what they are talking about

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Maybe SentimentRules is a bit like a wild horse that could do with being broken in? Anyway if this isn't the place for eccentrics then I don't know where is!

If you allow a new poster to carpet bomb the site with drivel, don't be surprised if you lose a lot of posters who actually know what they are talking about

Much of what I see on the supermarket shelves doesn't interest me. I still manage to drag myself round the place looking for the jar of raisin and chocolate lemon curd jam that I love so much
Whilst it's not a perfect answer, and nothing in life usually is, I've found the "foe" setting beneficial.
I have a small fess to make. I probably don't use the thank you button enough. I need to up my game

AiY

[Howyoudoin]

Facebook doesn’t get much right but what it does brilliantly is the ‘block’ function.

Once deployed, it’s like the other person never existed. You won’t see anything by them, they won’t see anything by you.

Just a shame that the software here is not as sophisticated as that.

HYD

[SentimentRules]

I had a thought of something that will blow your minds. A solution that has evaded even the most intelligent.

Maybe a polite, simple request of just asking the entity ; would he/she leave please?

I know. Its a concept that even evaded me. Manners and simple English. Maybe it's worth stepping into that zone of the unknown. It might actually work

[Howyoudoin]

I had a thought of something that will blow your minds. A solution that has evaded even the most intelligent.

Maybe a polite, simple request of just asking the entity ; would he/she leave please?

I know. Its a concept that even evaded me. Manners and simple English. Maybe it's worth stepping into that zone of the unknown. It might actually work

Ok.

Would you leave please?

HYD

[SentimentRules]

I just created a new referendum.

[SentimentRules]

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18512

[SentimentRules]

I had a thought of something that will blow your minds. A solution that has evaded even the most intelligent.

Maybe a polite, simple request of just asking the entity ; would he/she leave please?

I know. Its a concept that even evaded me. Manners and simple English. Maybe it's worth stepping into that zone of the unknown. It might actually work

Ok.

Would you leave please?

HYD

It was polite Sir. And nice to see somebody had the will to do it.

Yes of course I will. Wish granted. And thank you for the polite request.

[Gostevie]

I see that one new poster has been registered for almost exactly seven days (to the hour) and has so far posted 291 posts to multiple boards, managing to irk numerous fellow members in the process.

It's a shame because what usually differentiates TLF and previously TMF from the likes of ADVFN and the LSE asylum is its careful moderation of such behaviour.

To be fair, the moderators here are unpaid volunteers and the site is free to use so we can hardly complain - they do a great job. My suspicion is that this particular individual might have mental health issues. If so I hope that he or she gets the appropriate professional help.

[Gengulphus]

Now that it's become apparent from this thread what it's about (and I've caught up enough from a few days away), I think it's probably worth reminding everybody of a few of the site rules:

* To make this a valued and successful discussion forum, LemonFool asks all users to be respectful, understanding and helpful to other posters

* It is forbidden to write defamatory remarks, whether about site users or others. Any potentially defamatory posts will be removed without warning
...
* Robust debate is allowed, but it must remain polite and respectful at all times. Stick to the facts and argue the points discussed, rather than criticise the poster.
...
* Where a user identifies any post that contravenes the above rules, LemonFool kindly requests that you click on the "!" to report the post to the moderation team who will deal with it

Discussing other users in ways that suggest they are spammers or trolls, require "potty training" or "nappies", etc, does not strike me as any of respectful, helpful or polite. It is certainly criticising them as posters, and might even be seen as defamatory.

And if a poster is causing a problem, at least the spirit of the last rule I've quoted says to me that the correct response is to report their post(s). On TMF, it would have been the letter as well, as TMF had a general rule against being disruptive to the site, but TLF does not appear to have followed TMF's example on that (whether that was a deliberate change of policy or just an attempt to simplify the rules coupled with a failure to imagine disruptive behaviour that didn't contravene other rules, I don't know).

As far as I can see, by the way, all that's happened here is that a new user has failed to appreciate that TLF is a discussion forum, not a chat forum. A few hundred contributions per week would be perfectly normal in the sort of quickfire exchange suggested by the word "chat" - I certainly know people who would have no trouble contributing that many times per hour in a real-life chat! "Discussion" however suggests more considered, less frequent contributions - and while I'm not suggesting that TLF either is or should be exclusively for discussion-type contributions, someone who goes in too much for chat-type contributions is liable to run into the sort of problem we've seen here.

Essentially, such a new user is being disruptive to the "discussion forum" tradition of this site, which goes back quite a long way once one considers that it was brought over here from its origins on TMF. But that disruptiveness is quite possibly an unintentional misunderstanding of the nature of the site, by a user who might have done nothing worse than being rather incautious about how they join in. If so, criticising the new user is a particularly poor way to respond, as it's very liable to put them on the defensive. It's much better to explain calmly and politely how they've misunderstood the nature of the site and ask them to make an appropriate effort to fit in. (Which does not mean that one should decide that it's definitely such a misunderstanding, just that one should give them the benefit of the doubt while it exists - and giving people the benefit of the doubt was incidentally another TMF rule that didn't make it into the TLF rules, at least explicitly.)

One other point is that having a whole lot of people telling one off for something, even if they all remain entirely calm and helpful about it (and far more so if some of them don't), is not a recipe for being made to feel welcome. A single PM from a moderator has a better chance both of being calm and helpful and of not being intimidatory - and provided the moderator makes it clear they're speaking as a moderator, of being accepted as real information about what the site is like and aims to be like, rather than just individual users voicing individual wishes about what it should be like... And finally, if the benefit of the doubt turns out to be misplaced and the new user is being intentionally disruptive to the site, an ignored request from a moderator makes a better basis for subsequent more robust action from moderators.

Gengulphus

[Lootman]

As far as I can see, by the way, all that's happened here is that a new user has failed to appreciate that TLF is a discussion forum, not a chat forum. A few hundred contributions per week would be perfectly normal in the sort of quickfire exchange suggested by the word "chat" - I certainly know people who would have no trouble contributing that many times per hour in a real-life chat! "Discussion" however suggests more considered, less frequent contributions - and while I'm not suggesting that TLF either is or should be exclusively for discussion-type contributions, someone who goes in too much for chat-type contributions is liable to run into the sort of problem we've seen here.

I confess that I am not a member of any so-called chatroom. I don't even use messaging tools like WhatsApp for "chatting" except to keep in touch with my children because they pretty much only use WhatsApp, and regard email as some kind of 19th century relic.

But that said it is my understanding that such chatrooms have a technology that enables you to be online and available constantly, and it is really the advent of smart phones that have enabled such a way of communicating. We've all seen younger folks with a phone apparently stuck to their hand in any situation or location.

Now TLF really isn't set up that way. I only tried using TLF on a phone once and it drove me absolutely nuts. So if you are reading anything from me it was produced on a laptop, and in a very non-realtime manner. As such I wouldn't really be able to chat here, and I say that as someone who has apparently posted more messages than anyone else here. I don't see how any other Lemon could either. The closest would be some kind of rapid fire back and forth between two or more parties within a single topic, and you do see that sometimes in busy places like the Polite board or maybe a HY board.

I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that I'm not sure that the now departed right honourable SR, whilst he may have been using the argot of chat, could really have ever credibly seen this forum as truly interactive. It's hard for me to believe that he didn't realise this place is, as you say, for more reflective discussions. I think the factors that drove his apparent unpopularity were his rather opaque mode of writing, his very opiniated, oddball theories, and his inability to stay on topic. That said there are doubtless some here who might say the same about me and other Lemons.

[PinkDalek]

Now that it's become apparent from this thread what it's about (and I've caught up enough from a few days away), I think it's probably worth reminding everybody of a few of the site rules: ...

Also from the Fool Rules:

Users are prohibited from posting SPAM posts

As the author of the OP, I used the term spam to reference the disruptive nature of the posts, of which many of the Mods were already aware.

Please note I deliberately did not specify what I was on about at that stage but I'm only too aware that a number of Fools and Mods were so aware. A number of us had attempted to direct the poster to the Rules, to various Guidelines and to more appropriate Boards etc. Such as here, from me at least:

viewtopic.php?p=234456#p234456

viewtopic.php?p=235239#p235239

viewtopic.php?p=235552#p235552

In so far as I am concerned, I engaged politely at the beginning, then rather gave up but I'm not aware I breached the Rules. If you find posts of mine that you think breached such Rules, kindly report them. Otherwise, I object to the inference but I'm not the one who has reported your post.

I don't think other replies could be deemed to be defamatory, in that I'm not aware one can be defamatory of an unknown individual. If I'm wrong, kindly refer me to somewhere authoritative.

I don't disagree with most of your other comments but nor did I engage in any of the ban him type replies. Despite SR inviting such answers, such as here viewtopic.php?f=21&t=18512 (which you may not have seen during your catch up).

[Lootman]

I object to the inference but I'm not the one who has reported your post.

How would you know that the post by Gengulphus was reported, given that you are not a Moderator?

If it was moderated then that is a reasonable inference. But then a Mod could have read the post and modded it without it being actually being reported.

I'm not trying to be funny here. I just was not aware that there was a way for a non-Mod to know a post has been reported. If there is, could you enlighten?

I didn't report it either.