People who join just to access the advertising boards

[• Ambrose •]

Are you advertising anywhere, and if you are, are you joining their forums to do it?

If you're advertising elsewhere as a guest, then it's only fair you allow them to advertise on your forum. Most people just come and go to advertise, and I know it gets annoying, but it's a way to spread the word about your forum.

I actually have a member who won't stop talking about her forums. She doesn't link to them, but it distracts some of the others and they get upset about it too.

[The Hunger Games]

You could consider hiding the advertising board to guests. That way, there won't be any incentive to join if there isn't even an advertising board.

[stevecureboi]

Dec 30, 2018 17:17:43 GMT -8 Talira Greycrest said:

I own three forums: 'The Eternal Kin', 'Perfectly Prehistoric' and 'Crystal Kingdom Cats: an elemental cat rpg'.

To prevent spamming, I don't allow guests to post on the advertising boards. Only registered members can post links to their own forums. What's annoying me is that people will join my forums with the sole purpose of gaining access to the advertising boards so they can talk about their own forums. They clearly have no interest in actively participating in the discussions on my forums. How can I deal with people who do this besides deleting their accounts? 

I would use the member ranking system & decide how many posts to reach each rank.
Then, in the permissions for the advertising board, I would use the custom setting for who can post, reply etc in that board & set it to only members ranked "whatever the chosen member rank is".
I'd also add to your forum's rules something along the lines of "Only members of xyz rank will be granted access to the advertising boards"
You could also do something with user groups, but that would mean manually adding member into those groups. Member ranks will work automatically.
!!Pay attention to members who simply post pump to get their rank up though. maybe put something in the rules about that too"
Here's what I have set up for members who actually bother to participate

Attachments:

[private]

Dec 30, 2018 17:17:43 GMT -8 Talira Greycrest said:

I own three forums: 'The Eternal Kin', 'Perfectly Prehistoric' and 'Crystal Kingdom Cats: an elemental cat rpg'.

To prevent spamming, I don't allow guests to post on the advertising boards. Only registered members can post links to their own forums. What's annoying me is that people will join my forums with the sole purpose of gaining access to the advertising boards so they can talk about their own forums. They clearly have no interest in actively participating in the discussions on my forums. How can I deal with people who do this besides deleting their accounts? 

I also maintain three forums.
In my opinion, I think it is better to just allow members to list their website within their profile.

Have you ever considered removing your advertising board?

[bricabrach]

    This is likely why another forum I'm on has a "15 posts before you can link" policy.  Yet it's not enforced automatically -- I posted a link there as my fifth post.  No one complained because it wasn't an advertisement, rather it was a link to creative content I had made elsewhere.

[••GamingBoards.net••]

I would suggest just not having an advertising board.

[Derek‽]

I’ve never understood why so many forums feel the need to have boards for advertisements. Frankly, their presence looks amateurish and unappealing to someone who has been on the internet long enough to know what they (read: I) want from a community—noise and fluff aren’t it.

If prospective members tell you that you should have such a board or indicate to you they won’t join a forum without one, write them off and move on. They have no interest in your forum and will provide nothing of lasting value to your community.

A forum that feels it must provide an advertising board to its members is already in trouble. Begging and bribing members is a sign that the discussions (or gameplay, for RPs and RPGs) are weak and the community itself is too fragile to be self-sustaining. Good content and stimulating discussions are all the reward anyone is owed for contributing to a community.

“But I want to provide an advertising board as a treat to my members!”

Alright, then make it a real treat. Make them earn the ability to post an ad. Do as stevecureboi suggested and allow only members who have a certain post count to create threads in that board.

Don’t set the rank too low or you’re just handing out the ads again. Anything under 100 posts is an absolute joke, and I wouldn’t personally entertain allowing under 300 as an absolute bare minimum. Depending on the nature of the forum and how quickly discussions progress, even 300 may be laughably low. Forum owners should probably expect to uses rank requiring at least 1,000 posts, if not several thousand. Active members will hit those numbers in a reasonable timeframe.

In addition, disable post counts in boards that are enabling of spam or otherwise don’t often facilitate substantial discussions. If you have an updates board where users can reply to threads created by staff, you probably don’t need to enable post counts in that board, as the replies tend to be of a shallow, “you guys rock [trite emoji]” nature. The same goes for news sharing boards and others that may occasionally foster real discussions, but usually don’t. Keep in mind: when anything is based on post count, it tends to encourage spam; cutting out the reward for spamming is the best way to discourage that behavior.

Crucially, don’t be afraid to edit a user’s profile and manually reduce their post count if you feel they’re spamming, making weak contributions to discussions or the community as a whole, or are otherwise trying to game the system.

Of course, this is all a lot more work than is necessary when the simplest, most effective solution really is “don’t have an advertising board in the first place”.

[Retread]

Dec 30, 2018 17:17:43 GMT -8 Talira Greycrest said:

I own three forums: 'The Eternal Kin', 'Perfectly Prehistoric' and 'Crystal Kingdom Cats: an elemental cat rpg'.

To prevent spamming, I don't allow guests to post on the advertising boards. Only registered members can post links to their own forums. What's annoying me is that people will join my forums with the sole purpose of gaining access to the advertising boards so they can talk about their own forums. They clearly have no interest in actively participating in the discussions on my forums. How can I deal with people who do this besides deleting their accounts? 

Things you could do (I saved the best for last):

• Have clearly stated rules, either in the board description or in a thread and place a link in the board description
• Use member ranks/post counts as suggested by stevecureboi
• Delete (or move to boards which are only visible to staff) posts and threads which don't suit you.
• Drop the concept of 'advertising' on your forum. ( private , ••GamingBoards.net•• )
• Employ 'affiliates' rather than 'advertising'. You can make a board private (only the threadstarter and staff* can see a thread someone creates) to facilitate exchange of affiliations. * can be limited to threadstarter and admin, if so desired.
• Learn to accept the fact that some people will do the bare minimum to get what they want out of any deal.

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Dec 30, 2018 18:58:50 GMT -8 Talira Greycrest said:

Yes, I do advertise on other forums, but I also actively participate in the discussions on those forums. I don't just advertise my own forums then disappear.

That's an admirable code of conduct. There can be a symbiosis between forums. But expecting all others to abide by your code of conduct is an unreasonable expectation.