How does it make you feel when people ask off topic questions in this category?

[anlomax]

I often do this just because I like the responses in this category. Does this upset you or what?
I have been reported for a few of my off topic questions.

[Ian Price]

I think off-topic is basically anything that isn't covered in any other sub-forum and can (and should) include general conversation - this helps to build communities and relationships.

There are certain forums that don't tolerate any form of off-topic conversations - I really don't understand this at all. Sometimes people need to vent, have fun, ask questions, look for ideas, assistance or support in an area not deemed to be part of the main forum or just be a bit silly. And that's perfectly fine by me

[Kitty Hello]

Yes, on some forums the answer would have been something like:

TOPIC IS OFF TOPIC.  THREAD CLOSED.  SHUT DOWN.  FOR GOOD, YOU HEAR ME!?
I'M A MODERATOR WITH ALL MODERATION POWERS YOU CAN IMAGINE. I'M GONNA CLOSE/BAN/REJECT/MOVE YOUR EVERYTHING, YOU 

Which can just translates to: "Help me. It's my wife who descides what's on TV."

[Hatonastick]

Yes, on some forums the answer would have been something like:

TOPIC IS OFF TOPIC.  THREAD CLOSED.  SHUT DOWN.  FOR GOOD, YOU HEAR ME!?
I'M A MODERATOR WITH ALL MODERATION POWERS YOU CAN IMAGINE. I'M GONNA CLOSE/BAN/REJECT/MOVE YOUR EVERYTHING, YOU 

Which can just translates to: "Help me. It's my wife who descides what's on TV."

Gernot, is there something about your private life you would like to get off your chest? 

Just kidding, that made me laugh out loud though.

The only things I wouldn't abide would be advertising spam (ie. the sort you usually get from spam bots) and anything that would be deemed illegal, either by my own country (if I was legally responsible for the forum either because of fees I paid, or a contract I had signed) or by the country of the web server my forum was hosted actually hosted in -- although the latter can be a grey area as too many countries law systems are still struggling to catch up to the technology (I know ours is).

[Ian Price]

Yes, on some forums the answer would have been something like:

TOPIC IS OFF TOPIC.  THREAD CLOSED.  SHUT DOWN.  FOR GOOD, YOU HEAR ME!?
I'M A MODERATOR WITH ALL MODERATION POWERS YOU CAN IMAGINE. I'M GONNA CLOSE/BAN/REJECT/MOVE YOUR EVERYTHING, YOU 

Which can just translates to: "Help me. It's my wife who descides what's on TV."

You've been reading the BlitzBasic forums again, haven't you?

[Hatonastick]

Yes, on some forums the answer would have been something like:

TOPIC IS OFF TOPIC.  THREAD CLOSED.  SHUT DOWN.  FOR GOOD, YOU HEAR ME!?
I'M A MODERATOR WITH ALL MODERATION POWERS YOU CAN IMAGINE. I'M GONNA CLOSE/BAN/REJECT/MOVE YOUR EVERYTHING, YOU 

Which can just translates to: "Help me. It's my wife who descides what's on TV."

You've been reading the BlitzBasic forums again, haven't you?

People still visit those forums?!? 

[Moru]

Psst, this is a bot posting and I can't delete the post since people reply to it :-) Killing the linkspam instead, cary on :-)

[MrTAToad]

People still visit those forums?!?

Apparently

[erico]

Psst, this is a bot posting and I can't delete the post since people reply to it :-) Killing the linkspam instead, cary on :-)

hehe

[Sokurah]

Psst, this is a bot posting and I can't delete the post since people reply to it :-) Killing the linkspam instead, cary on :-)

Pretty obvious really...but anything that starts a good off-topic chit-chat is good in my book.

TOPIC IS OFF TOPIC.  THREAD CLOSED.  SHUT DOWN.  FOR GOOD, YOU HEAR ME!?
I'M A MODERATOR WITH ALL MODERATION POWERS YOU CAN IMAGINE. I'M GONNA CLOSE/BAN/REJECT/MOVE YOUR EVERYTHING, YOU 

Eerie. That's just like World of Spectrum. People there are on such a tight leash. You can't say a damn thing without being banned. A very sensitive place.

[matchy]

An issue to consider is the spam-bots signatures/links that generate and increase automated page flow and exposure of their website/products for search engines/client apps/virus databases approval.

[Moru]

Indeed. GLBasic seems to get about 100 access-attempts per day. About 10 gets through the first block and register on the site. Of those 10 about 1-5 makes it through the second block (a name/email/ip-address register of known spammers) to register and add a signature. Those have to be manually banned and added to the above name/email/ip register for others to block too. There are plugins for checking the linkspam in signatures but there are a number of bugs in them it seems.

[Ian Price]

An issue to consider is the spam-bots signatures/links that generate and increase automated page flow and exposure of their website/products for search engines/client apps/virus databases approval.

This is true most of the time - when I remove spam, signature links are generally my second check (after relevance to topic) in proving that the post is spam. However this spammer uses no signature or links (unless they've been removed by the Admins).

[Kitty Hello]

The forum needs an option to set the signature after say 5 valid posts only.

[matchy]

Or perhaps it would be safe, generally for most forums, to disable URL and external images for new members.