forums Flooding

It is widely known that a lot of forums have this rule:

quote Rules

Flooding, or posting in any thread in sight, regardless of whether it adds to the topic or not, is considered as spam.

The problem with this rule is that whoever wrote up the rules for the forums are putting too much emphasis on the likelihood that it will be a really high chance that it will be spam.

But now we have to consider the shayne problem. A lot of people knew him, and that he used to cover up a whole page of last replies to threads as himself. AS mentioned before, this was considered flooding. Normally, shayne would have received a warning from the moderators and have all of his posts deleted. However, they allowed his posts, seeing as they added to the discusion of the thread. But this does not agree with the "no-flooding" rule placed into lots of forums.

Does the way that flooding is dealt with differ from mod to mod?

There's also the more literal "letter of the law" vs. the more guideline based "spirit of the law" to consider.

Furthermore, exactly where did you quote this 'rule' from?

quote Castlewars

It is widely known that a lot of forums have this rule:

quote Rules

Flooding, or posting in any thread in sight, regardless of whether it adds to the topic or not, is considered as spam.

No rule threads exist here with that directive; particularly the "regardless of whether it adds to the topic or not" stipulation. It seems you've just come up with that yourself.

There's a lot of rule threads around the site, but allow me to pull a few completely at random and examine their stipulations on flooding:

• Forum Rules - Mega Man Battle Network 6: Cybeast Gregar

quote

Do not flood the forum with an abundance of one-liner posts. There's nothing wrong with making ten posts in a ten-minute period as long as you put some thought and meaning into your posts. Do not go around making one-line comments about a subject in an attempt to raise your post count and get noticed in the forum.

• Forum Rules, Announcements, Suggestions and Feedback - Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

quote

This is completely unacceptable. Flooding the forum is the act of posting in every thread on the first page without adding anything to of value to the discussion. This is usually done with the intention of getting higher on the forum Top Posters list or for raising post counts. This will not be tolerated, and Post restrictions will be given. This is your only warning for this offense. Most people trying this are caught out by their one line responses to the threads which hold little meaning.

• Rules/Guidelines - Latin/Hispanic Countries

quote

In regards to flooding: Please don't flood the forum with pointless posts, because they'll be gone in the same way that you posted them — fast.

• Forum Rules & Clan Guidelines - Call of Duty: Black Ops

quote

Flooding, as seen above, is a type of spamming. Simply put, flooding the forum is excessively posting so that you can be the top poster, raise your post count, or see your name all over the forum. All three of these are looked down upon, let others contribute the forum as well, guys! This does not mean that you can't be an active member, just be sure to contribute to the forum instead of posting nonsense simply to boost your post count, etc.

• Football Manager Hub - Rules and Index - Football Manager 2012

quote

Flooding the forum is posting many, many times in a short space of time. It's usually done so that the person doing it can have their name attached to the end of each thread in the forum. If your posts offer nothing and you're clearly doing this, they will be deleted and you will be warned.

• Animal Crossing: City Folk Forum Rules and Index - Animal Crossing: City Folk

quote

Please take notice that this doesn't mean that you aren't allowed to participate or you have a limited numbers of posts in the forum, just make sure they are actually contributing to the thread and you are not taking advantage of the forum threads.

• Forum Rules & Thread Index - Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grimoire of the Rift

quote

Flooding happens most of the time when you get overexcited and tend to post in every single thread in the forum. Most of the time all these posts are spam. Do not do this, unless ALL of your posts are constructive/helpful. Otherwise, flooding is against the rules.

Okay, I've been through enough now. All of the emphasis in the above quotes are mine highlighting exactly the point VeGiTAX2 is making: if posts are constructive, they're fine. In actual fact, from all of the rule threads I've visited and shown here it seems this information is very prevalent and widely propagated.

If you're going to make claims that something is "widely known" and quote rules here at least make sure they have some basis in fact, because from what I'm seeing the complete opposite to what you suggest is true.

quote Wakaman

To be honest castlewars you aren't one to talk about breaking the rules man, because you've spammed enough yourself. There wasn't a "Shayne problem" like you imply, only the MLP forum is where he was deliberately doing it, which the moderators came up to him about.

^{I agree. I'd consider this more of a "castlewars problem" concerning this forum lol. Shayne did have a period of flooding, but he stopped pretty quickly.}