Good plan, Don. I won't get into the troll wars here, but I will agree that what Alan (or Light, Blue Bear, Brent, Harvey, Chessrock, or myself, for that matter) does here is generally not SPAM. SPAM is like pornography, I know it when I see it. Consider this- SPAM exists in a gray area, like child sex abuse.
We pretty much all agree that when a 40 year old man has sex with a 3 year old girl, that's sex abuse, and the 40 year old is a sick criminal. Except for a few of us, I would think that we'll mostly agree that when a 17 year old girl has sex with a willing 16 year old boy, he just got lucky, and neither one of them is a criminal or a victim. Somewhere between the first and second example, each of us (and the law) have to draw a line, and we draw it in different places, according to our personal belief systems.
I think we all can agree that "Horny girl wants you bad" or "How to make money on the internet" posted to every forum *is* SPAM. I also believe that if Alan Hyatt says, "I'm the CEO of PMI Audio, the parent company of Studio Projects, an audio manufacturing firm", most of us will agree that that is *not* SPAM, just the truth.
Now, my particular belief system- If a guy posts, "I'm looking for a tracking studio in Canada for a commercial project, anybody know a good one?", and Blue Bear says, "I do that, and I think I can do a good job for a reasonable price. Send me an email and we'll talk about your needs, here's the link.", that is *NOT* SPAM. Everybody is allowed to belive that they do their job well, and everybody is allowed to admit what they do. If Blue Bear started posting spam-o-grams to every forum, advertising his services, then I'd identify the formed pork product, and email the moderator about it.
That's just the place where I draw my line in the sand. It works both ways though. If a person states they provide certain services or products in a forum, they also leave themselves open to both praise and criticism of their product, *not* praise and criticism of *them*. So if I recorded my CD at Blue Bear studios, I get to say, "Bruce did a great job, and I would recommend his studio", or "I wasn't really happy with Bruce's work because _________, and I think you could get better value elsewhere."
What I don't want to do is criticize a problem with a product without giving the guy a chance to make it right, or question the guy's character because I don't care for his work. That only happens when the guy is proven to be a fraud, a liar, or a thief. The other thing is that criticism, whatever it is, must be stated clearly and directly, rather than asking leading and apparently unrelated questions that intimate and insinuate, rather than stating the opinion clearly. That is really the only problem I've ever had with DJL's posts, which are transparent, condescending, and reveal the thinly disguised agenda behind them. Furthermore, the claims that they are innocent questions from inquiring minds who want to know is insulting to my intelligence.
Just don't lock the damn forum, Dragon. If you have to ban somebody, and you've tried every other reasonable route, just do it. And if you think somebody is spamming, report it to the moderator, and accept that he will or won't do something about it, depending on where *he*, and only *he*, draws the line. Then live with it. And pleeeease, stop beating the horse. It's dead.-Richie
