Hello ladies & gentlemen.
The other moderators and myself have noticed a bit of a worrying increase in the number of spam topics that are being posted on our fine and fair forum each day. And judging by the sheer number of you flagging and reporting these topics we're not alone.
So we politely ask that those of you posting spam topics please cease and desist at once! :D
I'm going to elaborate a little more on this below but for clarity sake I'll say it right now, youtube is not outlawed here on Giant Bomb. The only reason it is being singled out in this sticky is because of just how popular an online service it is and how many of these 'lets post a random video I found' topics use videos from youtube.
So what exactly is the issue, who is to blame?
- The biggest culprit for these spam topics we've noticed are what we have affectionately dubbed 'youtube spammers' who find a random youtube video, embed it into a topic and expect discussion to come from it. When they haven't even bothered to provide adequate original commentary to inspire productive discussion value to their topic.
- Generally we consider a topic 'youtube spam' when it consists of an embedded video accompanied by a short comment along the lines of "LOL look what I found guyz, isn't this funny? HAHAHA!" or something similar.
Why is this a problem?
- It clogs up the forum with unnecessary spam topics and creates an extra work load for the moderators when we have to continually lock or delete them. No productive discussion value comes from such topics if people don't put effort into trying to inspire a positive and good natured debate. And thus it simply becomes spam.
- Simply put if you cannot be bothered to or are unable to put the effort into making your topic worthwhile discussing, why should you expect others to do it for you?
How do I know if the youtube video I want to make a topic about will be considered spam or not?
- It really depends on two things - the content of the video, and the quality of the written commentary you intend to post with it.
- Any and all content you post, upload or create on the site must always be within our rules and guidelines. These can be found within the forum rules topic.
- Usually one or two well written and decent sized paragraphs to go along with the video should be enough for it to not be considered spam. If you feel you cannot write that reasonable and adequate amount of original commentary on the video to inspire discussion value in your topic, then chances are you shouldn't make the topic.
- If you are an existing member of our community and put together a video about a game and attach it to the correct forum, this is probably fine to share as long as it doesn't get out of hand.
As usual feel free to continue flagging and reporting such content as and where you see it but please do not reply to these sort of topics as that only bumps them up the list and detracts from the more important topics in the list. Also please contact all the moderators by using the link provided below. Otherwise continue to be awesome Giant Bomb community, just please put a stop to the random and inane youtube video topics :)
Log in to comment