Campaign Against Spam

Hersfold

Hersfold

TNPer
This is something that I tried for a while a few motnhs ago, and I think it turned out being fairly effective. Let me explain...

Campaign Against
spam.gif


On the Regional HQ at NationStates, we get pummelled by hundereds of regional advertizements each week. NationStates has said that recruiters are supposed to post only one ad per region per day, and there has been a standing request in our region for some time that all ads be 15 lines in length or shorter.

Many advertizers ignore these guidelines, and spam their region across our boards, retracting from more internal discussions, and causing more important posts to get bumped off within an hour or less.

So, I'm asking for a few volunteers - and the blessing of the MoC, if possible - to check the Regional HQ every now and then and check for those ads that you've already seen that day, or for those that are way too long. But what can we do to prevent these from happening?

In the past, CAS members would post a message on the HQ reminding recruiters to keep their ads short, and only one per day. We could probably work into this message something like "If you want to post a longer ad, come to our regional forums and we'll be happy to let you display your ad there" (Hey, might as well do some recruitment for ourselves, right?). If that didn't work, and they posted another long ad, we would TG the nation directly, asking them politely to shorten the ad. If that still got no response, then we would contact the UN Delegate/ Founder/Head Honcho of their region, and ask them to deal with the issue. Fortunately, I don't think we ever got to that point. When a notice was posted or TG'ed, members would post the name of the offending region here on the forums for record-keeping.

This did actually make a huge impact on the number of over-length and over-used ads in our region. With enough people, I think we can help win back our Regional HQ from the out-of-town spammers and maybe attract a few more members here in the process.

So, who's willing to spam against spam? Sign up below!

(And Wishy, I would appreciate a yes or no on this... it does kind of seem to be your department.)
 
Gaspo is supposed to be setting up a recruitment corps, which would do the same thing whilst encouraging people to sign up to the forum.

If you wanna set something up then I'd be more than happy to help out :p God knows we could use it.
 
GoalVA:
Gaspo is supposed to be setting up a recruitment corps.

If you wanna set something up then I'd be more than happy to help out :p God knows we could use it.
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Heh - Does Gaspo know this?

Whatever we do here can certainly be used to help out the recruitment corps (if one is created), sure.
 
Count me in in the New Year!

I know last year Cathyy and Erastide used to be very effective at clearing the spam and it became something of a sport to see how quickly it could be done, I forget the record that was set at the time!

Whilst I appreciate getting Govt approval, I also think that this is something we should all do for TNP to keep our HQ a warm and friendly place, without the need for red tape!

Anyway, I am totally up for helping in the New Year. (As I simply can not guarantee the time commitment before then).
 
Hersfold:
So, who's willing to spam against spam? Sign up below!
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:D Like we need asking...

Although, it will depend on me having something funny to say of course.

(you had me worried for a second there tho' Hers - thought this was a complaint about the forum... :noangel: )
 
HA! If it was about the forum, I'd have just had the mods deal with it! :D

Thanks all! We probably won't *officially* start anything until we get some form of approval, but thanks for volunteering!
 
And... while you're talking on the HQ, if you happen to see an obnoxious spammer and I'm not around, feel free to send them a happy TG. :D

Code: 
Hello!

I noticed you posted a recruitment ad for your region recently on The North Pacific HQ.  It is the current policy in TNP that all recruitment ads must be 15 lines or shorter.  Therefore, in the future, please limit your ad.  You may post a longer ad on the TNP forum here: 
http://s13.invisionfree.com/TNP/index.php?showforum=62

Please note, if you repeatedly fail to comply with the rule, you may be subject to banning from the region.

Thank you and have a good day!
 
And there we go :D

That PM is perfect.

So, here's the plan -

If you see a recruiter post an ad more than once each day, or their ad is too long, post something along those lines on the Regional HQ. (For public notices, leave out the bit about banning people)

If they do it again, send them that PM.

If they do it a third time, track down their region and complain to their Region's Founder and/or UN Delegate and/or other Head Honcho and ask them to deal with it.

And if it happens one more time, then I guess we let Eras pull the trigger? I'm not sure about the legailities of that, but if they're really that stubborn about it, I say go on ahead.


I just posted a notice for Primitive Barbarians, from the region "United Celtic Nations" - 1st offense.

And...
Domaithius, from The Ocean of Purity
Golden Triangle Region, from Golden Triangle
1st timers both.
 
Yes, me and Gaspo had a chat about this a week ago or so, with an aim to setting up something similar to this.

Although I can't comment on what refinements Gaspo might have come up with since then, our basic premise was to utilise the RMB for more regional discussions, hopeful eventually persuading more nations to join s13. Several of the ideas we had included:

- A weekly/bi-weekly report on regional affairs that we could try to keep on the RMB. Probably nothing more than a shortened version of the current regional report.
- Attempting to keep an update of current debates that are happening.
- Attempt to keep regional discussions active on the RMB. All it requires is for two people to be around, just to post about interesting things going on in the NS world.

Hopefully this should make the RMB reasonably fast moving, to compliment this, we had thought of contacting any advertisers by telegram that do post. We would let them know that we are using the RMB, at that any advert placed there in all likelyhood will disappear quickly, and offer the use of the Regional Advertisements board.

My personal thought on the matter is that contacting recruiters and threatenng to ban them isn't going to work. The odds are stacked in the recruiters favour. Even if we are lucky enough to catch them while their here, it takes all of 2 minutes to create another recruiting puppet.

I think we would have better luck explaining that we are going to be using the RMB more, and adverts won't hang around long enough to be of use. And offering the regional advertisements board as a better alternative. If we can appear to be trying our hardest to help the recruiters out, I think we'll have a better chance.

Anyway, sorry if I'm stepping on peoples toes here, my original idea was from the point of view of getting external regions to advertise. It was only after I realise the only way to get this to work was to reduce the effectiveness of the RMB that my thoughts started straying onto MoIIA and MoC territory.
 
Not a problem. I think its a wonderful idea. More activity there would probably do wonders at drawing more people into TNP if they see something interesting on the boards. Especially if we can be actively posting and conversing a good portion of the time.
 
maybe we could start games like word association on the RHQ, as a way of creating interest? so we'd have a game running but people from here would say "find similar games and more at ............"
 
Fulhead Land:
maybe we could start games like word association on the RHQ, as a way of creating interest? so we'd have a game running but people from here would say "find similar games and more at ............"
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Sounds like a good idea... have fun keeping the game on the screen, though...
 
Right, I'm quite happy to start telegramming individual recruiters, just to make them aware of the existence of the Regional Advertisement board.

I was going to go with something like:

Dear Recruiter,

The North Pacific is increasing its presence on the Regional Message Board, in order to contact players who don't use our off-site forums.

As such this may cause adverts placed on it to disappear quickly at times. In order to provide recruiters with an alternative, we have opened up a 'Regional Advertisements' board on our off-site forum, to allow recruiters to place adds without fear of their one a day message being lost. This also provides the advantage of a permanent advert that will not disappear, as well as giving us a list of regions to recommend to new NSers.

If you feel you wish to place an ad on our offsite forums, please visit http://s13.invisionfree.com/TNP/index.php?act=idx, and scroll down to the 'Regional Advertisements' section.
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Unless there are any objections/better ideas floating around?

EDIT - Are we allowed to mercilessly ridicule adverts? I'm always tempted to...
 
Namyeknom:
Right, I'm quite happy to start telegramming individual recruiters, just to make them aware of the existence of the Regional Advertisement board.

I was going to go with something like:

Dear Recruiter,

The North Pacific is increasing its presence on the Regional Message Board, in order to contact players who don't use our off-site forums.

As such this may cause adverts placed on it to disappear quickly at times. In order to provide recruiters with an alternative, we have opened up a 'Regional Advertisements' board on our off-site forum, to allow recruiters to place adds without fear of their one a day message being lost. This also provides the advantage of a permanent advert that will not disappear, as well as giving us a list of regions to recommend to new NSers.

If you feel you wish to place an ad on our offsite forums, please visit http://s13.invisionfree.com/TNP/index.php?act=idx, and scroll down to the 'Regional Advertisements' section.
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Unless there are any objections/better ideas floating around?

EDIT - Are we allowed to mercilessly ridicule adverts? I'm always tempted to...
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Good idea. Just make sure you keep track of who you send it to. ;)

As for ridiculing recruiters... maybe not. If someone gets offended for whatever reason... and we DO want them to come here.
 
Guys... beware. No spamming. Word games *are* considered spam. So please don't do that. Conversation is acceptable, but don't go too far.
Namyeknom:
EDIT - Are we allowed to mercilessly ridicule adverts? I'm always tempted to...
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Well... you can mock them, but not in such a way as it's personal. I've.. corrected spelling, changed their advert to advertise TNP, or any number of other things. That's just politics. :p
 
Why is everything fun considered spam? Word games, poetry... :(

Anyway, I just posted a notice for English Humour (from The Region of Funny Guys) and Kaw Liga (from The Kingdom of Crussia) to shorten their ads. First offense each.
 
We can't get in trouble for it within the game. Especially since Great Bight used to ban hundreds of nations, which somehow wasn't griefing.

Constitutionally, you've got a good point. The Declaration of Rights states that a Delegate can only ban a nation without prior approval in the event of "an urgent matter of regional security"... so unless these recruiters are relatives of the Pied Piper, I don't think that applies. But then at the same time, these recruiters aren't really members of our region, in that most of them only pop in just long enough to post their message. There are a few who make permanent residence, but it's not that many. So does the Declaration of Rights actually protect them?

I think we may need to call Schnauzer in on this one. In the meantime, I suppose we can use it as a sort of empty threat? :unsure:
 
I believe that this is a wonderful idea myself. Hopefully we can get this legality issue out of the way so we can formally keep the CHQ for TNPers, not recruiters.
 
wait a second:

will the NS Mods have problems with this? Sorry if I'm mistaken but arent Feeders the only places recruiters can post freely? will this be an issue?
 
No. I'm pretty sure we can ask them to keep ads short - what we can't do is keep them from posting ads entirely. Yes, we are discussing banning multiple offenders, but then we are giving them plenty of chances to cooperate. And it's not like we're going to get rid of everyone who says "Come to (insert region)!"
 
Technically, I could ban *any* recruiter nation I wanted to. They're obviously not going to be able to claim a native status of any kind. The mods wouldn't object if I just sat at my computer and watched the region, banning any recruiters that came in. :lol:
 
you can ban anyone you want period. In the eyes of the mods, feders have no natives.
But of course you wouldnt do that, would you eras? :unsure:



:p



UPDATE: Tmed Feudal Japan and Florida for breaking the limit.
 
Article I Clause 1:
1. All Nations of The North Pacific ....
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The Declaration of Rights are for Nations that have joined The North Pacific Region, meaning that its protections do not necessarily apply to other Nations, absent an Agreement or Treaty under Article II, Section 4.

Article I Clause 8:
8. No Nation shall be ejected from the region, or banned from any forum, except as expressly authorized by this Constitution or the Legal Code. Should any official of a government authority of the region with authority to act, declare that the immediate ejection or banning of a Nation is an urgent matter of regional security, the ejected or banned Nation shall have prompt and immediate recourse to judicial review of the matter. The UN Delegate shall not exercise the power of ejection or banning unless expressly authorized by a specific action of a government authority of the region pursuant to this Constitution or to the Legal Code.
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Several points here: The procedure applies to all Nations, however, Nations that are not residents/citizens of The North Pacific Region have no recourse other than the procedure described in this paragraph. Further, the Delegate is an"official of a govrnment authority of the region with authority to act," the proposed action can be taken to the Security Council which has constitutional authority to approve the Delegate's action.

Reference also needs to be made to Article VI:
ARTICLE VI. Expulsions.

Section 1. Expulsion.

Any Nation may be expelled from The North Pacific if found guilty of the following:
1) Violating any of the NationStates rules as provided on the NationStates.net website or as determined by a NationStates Moderator.
2) Violations of The North Pacific Constitution.
3) Violating the Regional membership regulations as outlined in Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution.
4) Violating The North Pacific Legal Code or other laws of the Region.
5) Violating the Rules and Regulations for Cabinet.

Section 2. Power of Expulsion.

1) The Delegate may not expel a Nation without the express consent of the Nations of the Region by either a referendum vote, with the participation of a quorum, or by a trial and judgment that specifically imposes expulsion as a penalty or in the case of an urgent matter of regional security as referenced in Article I of this Constitution.
2) The Judicial Branch or the Prime Minister can call a referendum vote of the registered voters of the Region for the purpose of approving a motion for immediate expulsion by the posting of the case and evidence of needed action in a thread within the Regional off-site Forum and a notification of the motion and referendum on the Regional message board at Nationstates.net at any time.
3) If more than half of the registered voters who cast a vote in that thread, with a quorum participating, vote in favor of an ejection within a 24 hour period, then the Nation will be ejected by the Delegate.
4) In the event of explicit spamming of the Regional offsite forum or the Regional civil headquarters message board at Nationstates.net, a Nation may be ejected by the Delegate without a prior referendum vote if the action is countersigned by the Prime Minister upon the posting of the offense by a registered voter, and a second to the immediate expulsion motion by another registered voter. However, the subject Nation of the expulsion action shall have the right to a post-ejection referendum vote by the registered voters of the Region on a motion to ratify the ejection. The vote shall be to ratify the action to expel, and the expulsion shall be ratified if within seven days, at least 50 per cent of the registered voters with a quorum participating, approve the motion in a referendum.
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There is a special process for spamming offenses, and while a procedure is stated for post-ejection approval of the ban, the offending non-resident, non-Citizen Nation has no protected rights outside of Article I Clause 8 of the Declaration of Rights.

In other words, since the region has adopted a policy limiting recruiting posts from other regions, the region has the means to enforce that policy, and there is a procedure for enforcement of the anti-spam policy. I would point out that as far as I am aware, there are no NS related gameplay limitations on banning due to spamming, and in fact the NS mods have imposed limits in the past on spamming that they enforced. I'm not aware of any NS-imposed limits that prevent the system described in the Constitution from being used.

P.S. The delay in responding was in part due to real life matters, and in part due to the fact that s13 was not accessible last night for some reason.
 
Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that bit. I think we threw it in there for this particular reason. Ok, thanks, Schnauzer!
 
I've posted a seperate list of recruiters I've TGed so far ('Campaign against Spam - TGed Recruiters' thread, funnily enough... :D ). I'll continue to update that as I go. I'm not looking out for anyone breaking the 15 line rule btw, just letting recruiters know about the regional advertisement board.
 
Patrons and Kaw Liga from the Empire of Crussia just posted the same ad for the same region within a couple hours of each other. Both, naturally, were over length. Since this is the second offense for their region, I'm TG'ing them both.

Annoyingly enough, they already have an ad here.
 
Bravo! Good to see an affirmative assault on spam. It's so inconsiderate to use the RMB, and much more effective to just rely on telegrams.

Also, the common folk (myself included) can try to keep conservation flowing on the RMB... the more active, the more attractive! :blah:
 
Prehaps we should move this on slightly? maybe have a thread pinned for reporting warnings people have given, and maybe nominating someone to tally warnings and keep a list?
 
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