This is precisely my reason for staying away – it is so clear which posters are just looking for links. I tend to use email notifications to help me follow a topic and when I get those types of notifications, it makes the forum a waste of time.
Which is a shame because there are clearly some good people here with good information.
It would be great if you could cut down on those types of link-seekers. However I know how bad the problem is. There are too many SEO hucksters out there who are charging innocent marketers for this type of useless link.
Just thought I’d offer a few quick thoughts in response to your email. I originally signed up to get an answer to a difficult PHP question, and to pay back for the opportunity, I answered several beginner posts. In the end I think I solved my problem myself, and posted the answer in the same thread.
To bring me back? Well, a couple of good points have already been raised. There are scores of beginner posts, and - from memory - much less in the way of advanced-level questions. I wonder if an advanced forum could be opened for people who had earnt the opportunity? That said, that could silo expertise, and reduce the number of people willing to help beginners - which may be counterproductive! I don’t really know the answer here.
I think a way to attract, and keep, excellent developers willing to pass on their knowledge is important. Similarly, it would be beneficial to discourage “vampire” posters who (a) don’t ask questions succintly, (b) don’t bother to post the answer if they discover it, or (c) don’t help once they’ve been helped. These people tend to suck the life out of a community, as the help only ever goes one way, and some effort needs to be expended in helping them formulate the question they should have asked in the first place.
Agreed with a previous poster - StackOverflow has an attractive design and the quick no-registration-required is a real boon. Their overall presentation, and their demonstration of understanding enterprise-level skills, shows that they “get” good development. This in itself attracts good devs (which, paradoxically, then attracts the vampires wanting free instantaneous assistance).
These days I mainly post on the symfony forum, as some excellent PHP developers hanging around there. I should think the same would be the case for Zend, Cake and other specialised boards.
But then the forum descended to a lot of fluff and signature spam. That wasn’t the only problem. The low quality of posters, their inability to frame a question properly, their unwillingness or do a bit of research for themselves etc., made me give up in exasperation. What’s the point of compiling a detailed reply addressing someone’s question if that person didn’t want the answer in the first place and was there only for the signature?
That’s partly why I started the forum in my signature two months ago - to have a location where serious discussion and quality debate wasn’t derailed by a swarm of spam master SEOs dropping in to say “Yes, I agree with all” or “This is a good discussion”.
As a forum owner now I appreciate the difficulty with keeping SPAM and fluff at bay, but it’s not as difficult as some make it out to be. There are numerous tools to block known spam IPs (stopforumspam, [URL=“http://www.botscout.com/”]botscout etc), and we’ve managed very well. We have a rule that you can’t post if you aren’t engaging (in the conversation) and you can’t comment without saying something.
…For example, a post with no content except the repetition of something already said in the thread. A high proportion of such posts may attract an infraction or a ban. More examples:
“Yeah, me too”
“I think that is good SEO, it will help you get more traffic to your site”
“I don’t think that will work”
“It’s very important. I have seen the same thing and I know this is true. And others have told me so I believe them. I think it’s important. Please believe me.”
Those aren’t comments worthy of a whole post. Repeated such posts may be seen as post count manipulation whatever the actual length of the post or the poster’s intention.
The discussions on the forum are testament to how well that’s working.
The question is, will/can Sitepoint ever really step down that hard on spam, signature spam and fluff posts? How much of discretion will mods have to simply delete posts that are not contributing to the conversation? How high will the thresholds be? And are they willing to be liberal with infractions and bans?
I wish Sitepoint all the best with cleaning the place up and, as I’ve stated elsewhere, will be happy to jump in and start chatting again if they succeed.
SitePoint has always been an invaluable resource for me, but as I’ve progressed in experience I found I came less and less often. I still do stop by on occasion, usually when I can’t figure something out, just like the rest of the noob’s but I’m mostly consumed with making my way these days with the economic slowdown and have no energy left when I’m finished my day’s work to come back online and play some more.
How to make it more interesting…Geez, I don’t know, I don’t have any real suggestions that haven’t been covered by the other posters here already, sorry. All the best to you guys at SitePoint though, you’ve always been great!
My suggestion (for what it’s worth): lose the sub-forums and get everyone together.
You have 80+ sub-forums, each with a specific topic, which may sound like a good idea but most of them don’t get looked at. Topics sit and stagnate.
Keep the main boards (Design Your Site, Program Your Site etc) but just mash all the posts and users together. The more users you have looking at topics the more chance something useful will get posted.
You also have the added benefit of the forum being constantly updated which makes it feel much more lively. Even if the next 100 posts are about PHP and I like ASP it still feels like the forums are alive with activity.
Also, lose the signatures and other visual noise. When you next reply to a thread, scroll down and look at the posts below the reply box. See how clean the forum looks? that’s how it should look all the time.
About half an hour ago I alerted the mods via the red triangle. This post should have been removed by now. That is what people are complaining about, fluff is either ignored or stays on for too long.
For some time now I held the opinion that SitePoint should have at least 2 paid mods to take care of these kinds of posts fast. The volunteer staff is not always there, those people work for a living and are overtaxed.
There also needs to be an iron fist about this, one more post like it and the poster is out. Period.
I did not slow my participation because of posts like this, although they annoy me to no end, but I am busy. I have learned what I came to SP for and am busy applying the knowledge.
I will stay on, now and then active. I made a lot of nice friends here and would not just leave, but SitePoint is only part of my life, not all of my life.
@@@ Ok, now the post is gone Thank you.
And another thing I wanted to mention. We all are punished by not being able to edit our posts for long, just minutes are given now. All because of the attempt to control spamming. This is not a good way to make the forum more welcoming to the serious member. Often I want to go back and rephrase something or correct a typo, not possible now any longer. Again—paid mods would be able to spot the kind of spamming that the volunteer mods try to prevent by this harsh measure.
i agree with you on this, and that’s one of the reasons i’m no longer a moderator, i was spending upwards of several hours a day just removing crap as soon as it arrived, and i just got burned out
i’m going to have to disagree with this – there is no way that you can automate the decision-making as to the content of a post being crap, a human being has to make that decision
If Sitepoint is relying on people pushing the triangle then they’ve already lost the battle.
I don’t want to push buttons, I want the spam gone when I arrive. Not five minutes or five hours later but five minutes ago.
That’s what Sitepoint needs to solve.
It’s achieved partly by automated means and partly by demonstrating strict action against perpetrators - like banning them!
A forum with thousands of members needs both: if the number of moderators is a handful, then the members need to take part (that or have a good 100 mods or so, since not everyone is online at the same time).
First fluff should always get a warning before more gets them banned: look how many do not know the term “fluff” (in a forum sense, that is). One of the posters Rudy mentioned above as fluff has also posted participatory posts.
However having an automated requirement that posts (at least in certain areas) have at least x-characters may help. Esp Website reviews and SEO.
Kind of like the Energizer Bunny, just more useful.
Keep up the good work. Trust me, for everyone who thanks you here in public, there are dozens who feel the same way but are just too busy to thank you.
i’m going to have to disagree with this – there is no way that you can automate the decision-making as to the content of a post being crap, a human being has to make that decision
That’s not what I said. You can use automated systems to automatically block spam from known spammers and known spam IPs. That alone would make a huge difference.
With the remaining posts there’s user age, word count, relative average word count, overuse of specific words and phrases and other signals that can flag well over 95% of remaining posts. I know, I’ve done it. Flagged posts are held in a moderation queue and don’t get seen by other posters till they are approved.
What’s left is less than 1% of spam and fluff.
A forum with thousands of members needs both: if the number of moderators is a handful,
The lack of moderators is not my problem as a forum poster. I may report posts but it’s arrogant to assume you can impose that job on me or guilt me into doing it out of “community spirit”. Give first fluff a warning if you must. Maybe even second fluff. But once a forum poster has demonstrated he’s capable of no more than fluff - delete him. There are hundreds of such posters already here just begging to be hit on the head.
What’s the point of a 30 day ban? If someone’s persona non grata, just delete his bloomin’ account!
I stopped posting a while ago myself and don’t really look at the forums anymore. Here are the reasons why:
Some questions I posted, I never got a response
Rude replies - sometimes from “topic of year award” or moderators
Egos - peoples ego’s seem to get in the way of allowing more the one correct response because theirs has to be “the” most correct
Useless/spammy/unreadable posts
Neon sign like signatures - big, multi-colored billboards advertising several websites
I find all of the above I mentioned really kills communities - especially people with ego’s. That has always been the number one reason I’ve stopped posting on any forums - because even if you quote something and source it, they are always “righter”
We do just this, and the default ban is for 2 years, not 30 days. People are banned for breaking the rules, including repeated fluff posting, every day. It hasn’t been effective. Perhaps in part because the bar for what we’re allowed to act on is not very low – it’s hard to differentiate a newbie webmaster from India trying to participate from a newbie webmaster from India that won’t ever read your replies and just wants backlinks. They write the same exact things.
The web design / development education is in chaos i think. I think turning the sitepoint community into a school with dedicated people to teach members on how to do something (web development related) will be great (paid or free is up to you guys). I like the way Envato has turned their Plus brand into a learning hub. If you look at Nettuts, it is a community that is focused on teaching something (a skill). Sitepoint can also sell premium memberships to people who are interested in learning advanced stuff…
Most of us don’t know where to start, it is places like this we come to. Helping us find a pathway from being a regular web designer to a good one will really help.
it’s hard to differentiate a newbie webmaster from India trying to participate from a newbie webmaster from India that won’t ever read your replies
Why bother differentiating? If they don’t meet the standards kick both types out. The last thing you want to impose on mods is deciding on poster “intention”!
I’ve got nothing against Indian webmasters (I’m Indian), and I welcome people on my forums for whom English is a second language. No infractions for not being a native speaker. But if their English is so bad they can only cut and paste boilerplate posts, kick them out!
r937, if that dog won’t hunt then they’ll have to find another dog.
If as Dan says the current system hasn’t been effective then a system needs to be found that is effective. Other boards have found ways. If Sitepoint is serious it’ll find ways too. My forums have no spam or fluff, but it’s a very niche forum and a fraction of the size of Sitepoint. So, I’ll admit, it isn’t the best example. But WW does it (at least better than here). ASsmallWorld does it. Other large forums do it.
this forum is way too active to put posts into a moderation queue (we already do it for attachments and requests for site reviews, and it’s a ~lot~ of work)
the latest “other dogs” we tried are (1) no sigs visible without logging in, effectively hiding the sigs from search engines, and (2) no sigs for 90 days
i personally think that 2nd one wasn’t necessary, but am totally in favour of the 1st one
No signatures for a whole year? No signatures, period?
Works for one of the biggest webmaster forums.
Anybody who’s here just for the signature is not worth having. Is the quality of content good enough to withdraw sops like the free sig links? I think it is, but is Sitepoint bold enough to test that?
his forum is way too active to put posts into a moderation queue
Nope, sorry. it’s never too active for a small percentage of posts to go into pre-moderation. It’s only too active relative to the number of mods.
For me it wasn’t either spam or fluff; those are simple nuisances, in small quantities they can be considered the cost of doing business on the 'net. I ceased stopping by as often because I was tired of dealing with the folks who decided I had to be wrong without ever bothering to understand what I was saying, just because it was outside their box, their comfort zone. And since a significant fraction of those carried with them a laudatory sp ribbon, I took that as an indication that I and my subversive ideas weren’t welcome here, so I went elsewhere.
My best improvement suggestion: Arrange some more generalized feedback about posts. I see the “Guru of the year” awards, but I’m thinking something smaller, at the “warm fuzzy” level, that everyone receives, that is a measure of the value of a post to the community. It’s better I think if no one but the admins knows precisely how the system works, to help discourage gaming it, but the feedback would be a way for those asking for help to reward those actually giving it, instead of those merely promoting themselves. The fact someone has written 5,000 forum posts (or even given 5,000 answers to questions) is meaningless. The fact someone has given 5,000 answers that the questioner has read and considers a good answer is far more relevant. If the points (or quatloos, or whatever) actually represent something worthwhile, then even attempts to game the system will result in more good answers, right?
Thank you.