I've just thought of this topic off of my head. Here is my view of what SPAM is and isn't...

SPAM is...
Unsolicited Advertising

I'd like to buy Nike shoes, boots, nike sports shoes

Congratulations, you are the 1,000,000th visitor to this site! Click here to contact the prize department now!

The King of Nigeria has left you a monies in the total sum of $18 millions dollar! Send us $50 dollar to pay bank fee.

Warning! Do not open any emails you receive with the attachment "Olympic Flame", McAfee and Microsoft have acknowledged this to be the worst virus of all time.

SPAM isn't...
Posting about the subject / topic of something that interests you (i.e. Barbie Dolls, Cats)
Asking whether a website is trustful or not.
Posting a link to a website that may help people on a specific matter

I remember someone also posted a link to a spam measuring index...? But I can't seem to find it now.

Do you have any defining factors of SPAM?
What about emails you have received?

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- Luke.

I've just thought of this topic off of my head. Here is my view of what SPAM is and isn't...

Spam is...
Unsolicited Advertising

I'd like to buy Nike shoes, boots, nike sports shoes

Congratulations, you are the 1,000,000th visitor to this site! Click here to contact the prize department now!

The King of Nigeria has left you a monies in the total sum of $18 millions dollar! Send us $50 dollar to pay bank fee.

Warning! Do not open any emails you receive with the attachment "Olympic Flame", McAfee and Microsoft have acknowledged this to be the worst virus of all time.

Spam isn't...
Posting about the subject / topic of something that interests you (i.e. Barbie Dolls, Cats)
Asking whether a website is trustful or not.
Posting a link to a website that may help people on a specific matter

I remember someone also posted a link to a spam measuring index...? But I can't seem to find it now.

Do you have any defining factors of SPAM?
What about emails you have received?

First and foremost spam isn't SPAM(R). Never refer the the electronic kind in caps! Hormel gets upset about that!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_(electronic)
If you follow the link to newsgroup spam you will find a link to the Breidbart Index

Terms like UCE, ECP, EMP, and the like better describe the beast(s). (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail, Excessive Cross Posting, Excessive Multi Posting.)

To me spam need not be commercial. Any over repeated message may be spam. Like a new weather report every five minutes. Or the ravings of Mike Corley.

Commercial messages that are unsolicited are always spam.

Messages for illegal things, are just that. They may not have the character of a spam, but frequently do.

Take an example of yours. The "are they legit post." If it is made by some random user it isn't spam. Same identical words posted by the owner of the URL is spam, because it is a form of advertising, albeit strange, for his site. No way for a mod to know the difference either.

As to another example of yours: a link to a potentially helpful place. That's normal discourse and respecting copyright. But if the person posting the link also owns the link, it could be abusive. No way for a mod to know.

Sometimes the nose test has to be applied. Does it smell like spiced ham or rotting fish? ;)

We haven't mentioned Joe Jobs or Sporgery.

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Looking at the Wikipedia starting page for Spam the following items are relevant here:

• Spam (electronic), unsolicited or undesired electronic messages (named after the Monty Python sketch); in particular:
  * E-mail spam, unsolicited or undesired email messages
  
• Spam (gaming), the repetition of an in-game action
  
• Street spam or Flyposting, illegal blanket advertising in public places.
  

Although a lot of spam is commercial, it is clear that the defining characteristics of spam in a computing context are "unsolicited", "undesired" and "repetitive".

As far as a forum is concerned, most of the posts starting a new thread arrive without explicit prior arrangement, but the forum is created to encourage new threads, so they are not "unsolicited". Subsequent posts in a thread should be more-or-less on topic. Those that are completely off topic will normally qualify as "unsolicited" and "undesired" and thus quite possibly "spam". If there are multiple off-topic posts from the same author, this action is "repetitive" and the posts are certainly "spam".

It is interesting that the posting rules don't seem to cover spam explicitly at all. The fourth rule comes closest but that is very weak since it refers to the poster's intention rather than the properties of the post.

Commercial posts are banned explicitly (second posting rule).

As Gary Charpentier has already pointed out, the test for "undesired" is a judgement call where new threads are concerned, but concurrent threads with the same subject should be discouraged and too many would be "repetitive".

Looking at the Wikipedia starting page for Spam the following items are relevant here:[list]
* Spam (

Well, you must have known I would respond with Spam..........wonderful Spam.

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"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

As far as a forum is concerned, most of the posts starting a new thread arrive without explicit prior arrangement, but the forum is created to encourage new threads, so they are not "unsolicited". Subsequent posts in a thread should be more-or-less on topic. Those that are completely off topic will normally qualify as "unsolicited" and "undesired" and thus quite possibly "spam". If there are multiple off-topic posts from the same author, this action is "repetitive" and the posts are certainly "spam".

I don't disagree that multiple off-topic posts from the same author are spam, but I do disagree as to why. If the posts are copies of each other then they are repetitive. If they are different and new they are not repetitive, but are likely intended to annoy or be hostile. Still spam but a different reason.

It is interesting that the posting rules don't seem to cover spam explicitly at all. The fourth rule comes closest but that is very weak since it refers to the poster's intention rather than the properties of the post.

Commercial posts are banned explicitly (second posting rule).

As Gary Charpentier has already pointed out, the test for "undesired" is a judgement call where new threads are concerned, but concurrent threads with the same subject should be discouraged and too many would be "repetitive".

I believe there is a reason for the weak rule. That being the act of posting is a request for comments. Some posters would find any disagreement with what they post to be undesired and therefore spam. Were this the intent of the board owners, then any user should be able to mark the thread as read only and act as posting gate for the thread, but we don't have that ability. The question of undesirable becomes undesirable to whom. Is it the the author of the first post? The next hundred authors who see the topic in a different light? Or undesired by the lurkers who just read but don't post?

The only way this can be resolved is for the original author to request strict adherence to the topic on the first post; Otherwise thread drift is the norm. Of course we also have some random whatever you want to say threads too, and those were again explicitly started that way. Sometimes the subject alone makes the intent obvious, sometimes it doesn't.

It is too bad the board doesn't have a way to split a thread topic while retaining thread order as usenet does. Because of this thread drift on the board can make the original topic rather unrelated to where a good thoughtful discussion has taken it. {For those unfamiliar on usenet a post can be labeled "New topic (was old topic)" Messages also appear in tree branch form so that replies appear under the message they refer to.}

The mods need a very light touch on thread drift. If they don't then we end up with the situation as Michael Roberts points out were we have 100 almost identical threads.

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