Thread: What is your definition of "spam" versus marketing?

I'm seriously asking because I'd like to hear some opinions--particularly from the mods and Lynn--on what they think is "spam" and where they draw the line between that and internet marketing.

Before you start slamming internet marketing, let me just say that this board and others are excellent examples of internet marketing at it's finest, as they promote a product while providing some good, solid information.

Oh, and I make a living doing internet marketing. And I am most definitely NOT a "spammer."

Has anyone looked up "spam" yet?

It does have a very specific legal meaning, as it is currently illegal under US federal laws.

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"Spam" means to send unwanted emails to strangers with the express purpose of promoting a product or service.

"Spam" USED to be a subset of internet marketing BEFORE spam became illegal. Now we internet marketers use double-opt-in email lists, to make sure we don't send you email you don't consent to have.

I'm asking because I just had a VERY unpleasant experience at a knife board during the last week or so, resulting in very bad experiences with one self-styled "Supermod", 2 knife makers (one of whom I spent money with, the other I was just looking and asked for more details, yet I STILL felt sorry for his "friend with cancer" so I sent "friend with cancer" all the cash I had in my wallet bigger than 1's--it added up to $85--in cash. )

So long story short, because I posted with my website URL in my sig line, I was warned and then LIFETIME BANNED and I may have been libeled as being a "spammer", or "spamming" or sending "spam".


I am very upset about this, since I do not have anything to do with "spam", which is a criminal activity.

So what do YOU call "spam"?

As with all things, there is a time and a place, and internet marketing outside of its proper place or time is Spam. I am a member of more than one board that forbids commercial links in sigs--and that is certainly their right.

Spam does have a legal definition, but that is not the absolute end--it's a new word, with strong social ramifications, and it will continue to grow and evolve as some marketers become more and more invasive and use more and more subterfuge to insert their marketing message into online discourse.

I agree that spam has different meanings other than just the legal dictionary definition. Spam to many just means unwanted advertisements. For example, I know that some knife forums pay the bills with advertisements and board sponsors, so they don't allow any type of commercial advertisement, be it in sig lines or elsewhere. This is only fair to the advertisers; if you get to advertise free and they pay $750 per year, then that's a bum deal for the advertisers.

Depending on how prolific of a poster you are, you may actually be recieving more attention from readers than their banner advertisements. Some consider it advertising if you push your product within your posts also. Look up "Ken's Gizmo" on knifeforums.com for examples.

If you were warned and persisted with the offense resulting in a ban, then there ya go. Due to the ideas of freedom and anonymity often associated with many aspects of the internet, some people feel that moderation/regulation in forums such as SRP or KF is a form of oppression, but we need to be aware that these forums are privately owned and requre membership to be able to post. Moderators need to be able to keep the conversation and content of the forums in line with the philosophy and goals of that forum. There are some knife-making websites that I don't like to visit because language is totally unregulated, and many of the guys there have basically porn for their avatars. To each their own, I guess, but leave the porn on the porn sites.

Spam, to you as an internet marketer, probably has a much different meaning than it does ot the owner of a knife forum. Even here on this forum, we call posters who just post stupid links to "how much are the nike shoes" or something like that a spammer. This doesn't meet the criteria set forth as an "unwanted email", but it's spam to us at any rate.

I think when we are heavily involved with any specific topic, be it hobby or professional, we are more sensitive to the nomenclature applicable to that topic. I like knives, too. If my brother used the term "Sharpening Steel" I might even correct him and inform him why it's actually a "Honing Steel" instead. He would listen to my spiel and say "Whatever, I'll call it a sharpening steel." I think this is what you're up against when you talk about spam. For people like us, it's a big difference, but for the other 99% of the earths population, we're just splitting hairs.

Marketing used to be a term for trying to bring a product at the attention of potential buyers.
Sadly, marketeers have turned the term into an euphemism for telling lies and bending the truth in order to sell things to people, regardless they need those things or not.
Spam is the virtual equivalent of the unsolicited adverts, that marketeers mail to my home address daily. Unfortunately, I can't light my wood stove with the spam in my email-box...

I reject the idea that this board is about "internet marketing". This board connects people that share a passion. Some may earn a nickel and a dime in the margin of that passion, but the day this board becomes a mere platform for promo talk, I will be gone. In fact, I find SRP an agreeable safe haven, where I can indulge in my passion without someone trying to take commercial advantage of that.

I am pretty sure members with razor related commercial activities, like Howard, Tony Miller, ArdennesCoticule, Leon, Lynn and Don, and many others see the forum more as a great channel for customer service than as a sales channel.
There's a member that tried to sell a miraculous red "far superior" honing paste with fairly aggressive promotion speak. I believe the mods kept a close eye on that.
I am no mod, have nothing to say here, but for me, this guy was flirting with my personal threshold of what I would consider acceptable behavior on this shaving community.
Having a commercial link to a legal bussiness in your sig line, in normal color and font size, is not something I object against.

Best regards,
Bart.

Spam has come to be a general term that's widely applied. There is also a legal definition of spam. Including a link in your sig on a forum board would probably fall under the former. Note that it wouldn't have to be strictly commercial. Might be religious or political in this context. If it was a link to your personal website where you have your autobiography and pictures of the family it probably wouldn't draw that term. So for the loose definition it's an unwanted imposition on your attention.

On forums such as this with paid sponsors/vendors it's going to be a subjective call by the owners and/or mods acting in their behalf. They may have it in the guidelines or TOC and they may not. It's a private board so they can run it like they want. There was a thread/announcement about that not to long ago where it was reiterated that, in general, commercial links in sigs were not going to be allowed unless you were a supporting vendor. It seems to be applied subjectively. There's always grey areas so it will always be generally defined. Bodybuilding for example. On the surface it wouldn't seem to conflict with vendors on a shaving forum. But lets say you had a couple of body oils or skin care products, then maybe, right?

So it might be called spam as a general term for an unsolicited promotion of anything. It really doesn't matter if it's labeled "spam". If you're being prosecuted in court then it would matter.

I do not consider your sig line spam. I can choose to click the link or not. Un wanted advertising such as emails and popups are crap.

[B]

Originally Posted by YesSheDoes!

I'm seriously asking because I'd like to hear some opinions--particularly from the mods and Lynn--on what they think is "spam" and where they draw the line between that and internet marketing.

Before you start slamming internet marketing, let me just say that this board and others are excellent examples of internet marketing at it's finest, as they promote a product while providing some good, solid information.
I can only speak for this board, but I know that time and time again we have taken actions to keep this site focused on the community that we all have built. That is the big reason behind our current vendor policy. We define a vendor as someone with a separate website. That may change if it needs to.

Oh, and I make a living doing internet marketing. And I am most definitely NOT a "spammer."

Has anyone looked up "spam" yet?

It does have a very specific legal meaning, as it is currently illegal under US federal laws.
A lot of words have very specific legal meanings. Take slander for instance, people use it in a non-legal capacity as well. We define spam as abusive posting for the purpose of gaining an advantage off of our site.

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"Spam" means to send unwanted emails to strangers with the express purpose of promoting a product or service.

"Spam" USED to be a subset of internet marketing BEFORE spam became illegal. Now we internet marketers use double-opt-in email lists, to make sure we don't send you email you don't consent to have.

I'm asking because I just had a VERY unpleasant experience at a knife board during the last week or so, resulting in very bad experiences with one self-styled "Supermod", 2 knife makers (one of whom I spent money with, the other I was just looking and asked for more details, yet I STILL felt sorry for his "friend with cancer" so I sent "friend with cancer" all the cash I had in my wallet bigger than 1's--it added up to $85--in cash. )
On our site, supermod actually means something, supermods have the ability to ban members other than spammers and make calls that are a bit harder to make than those made by mods. Mods, SuperMods, and Admins in order of authority on SRP.

So long story short, because I posted with my website URL in my sig line, I was warned and then LIFETIME BANNED and I may have been libeled as being a "spammer", or "spamming" or sending "spam".
I don't know the details of what happened, but here if you were warned and then ignored the warning you would receive some type of banning depending on what the offense. We try and give folks some time to comply but in the end, we do what we think is best for the site.



I am very upset about this, since I do not have anything to do with "spam", which is a criminal activity.

So what do YOU call "spam"?

Tam, we have spelled out what we allow and what we don't as best we can in the vendor's guidelines I linked to above. We are still human and improving the process everyday. Any suggestions that you or any other member care to give are taken seriously and discussed even if you don't see the resulting conclusion.

I hope this helps.

-Rob

PS- Who made your web site? I am just curious.

SPAM = HAM IN A CAN

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

I do not consider your sig line spam. I can choose to click the link or not. Un wanted advertising such as emails and popups are crap.

I consider it spam; this is a razor / shaving forum, and her signature line, or shall I say 6 signature lines mention weird and irrelevant stuff. I have a hard time deciding what's worse: a woman on rods, a woman that shaves because of it, a woman who talks about it publicly, or the 17 minute weight loss thing. Or perhaps the threat to "hand you your a** on a damascus platter back to you"? Seriously, this is most strange and somewhat aggressive. And off topic. Can't blame anyone for banning her from his forum.

spam was a word back in the late 80's long before our clueless congressional overlords decided to pass a bunch of uninformed legislation about it. in those days it indicated any post on a bbs that LOWERED the signal to noise ratio. thus anything offtopic, uninformative or just plain stupid was spam.

these days the connotation of the word is more along the lines of what people are discussing here; unsolicited advertisement. while I feel that YSD's sig is definitely a shameless plug, and even borderline tacky, it's certainly not spam in either sense of the word.

cornelius, all I have to say is: IBTL.