I just realized that someone registered at Meliora for the sole purpose of advertising her new site via e-mail to all of the members. This happened earlier this month, but I did not notice until now because I do not regularly check my e-mail. Obviously I was aggrevated by this because this person wasted my time, broke the rules of my forum, and really just annoyed me and the other members of my site. In addition to advertising in this irritating manner, this user never posted at Meliora.

It was my belief that advertising through PM and e-mail was generally frowned upon in the RPing community, but is that the common belief? Do boards generally have a rule against using this method of advertising? If so, how do people go about enforcing these rules? Is it common to have people advertise this way?

These are the two e-mails that she was sending to my members:

After realizing that this person had been doing this, I responded by sending her the following e-mail:

I also deleted the user's account as I am sure she won't be using it anytime soon. I probably should have stated that I would be doing this, but it slipped my mind. Ohwells.

Despite the owner's questionable methods of advertising, the site currently has 29 registered members and it seems fairly active. X_X

I think you did the right thing.

I ONCE PM'ed a member of a (non-RPG) board I'm on, to ask someone if they'd take a look at my RPG as I thought she'd be perfect for a character we were after. I didn't advertise the board itself, though I did post a link. She was very nice, said she was much too busy with RL stuff but thanks for thinking of her, and wished me luck with the RPG.

But I have never nor would ever join a board specifically to PM people abot my own. That's just... wrong. As for emailing them... that's spam and why spam filters were invented in the first place.

RPG advertisements are very good at slipping through spam filters on e-mail. I've received a few of them myself "because they'd seen my work on another board" or something of that manner, and wanted me to join. Which, s funny, because I'm pretty sure the e-mail(s) were mass.

I find them offensive. I'm super free with my IM information. I'd rather someone see my writing and then IM me about joining their forum, then send me a rather anonymous and mass e-mail. I delete them, and usually don't look at them once.

BTW, you missed in a link in her second e-mail, just so you know, and don't get in trouble. ^^

^Oops. Thanks for telling me I missed one.

After further investigation, I realized that this person managed to get at least one member from my site. Because I know the person who joined her site from yet ANOTHER site I am a member of, I notified her to let her know that this person had sent out e-mails to numerous members (I don't know how she discovered the site. It may not have been through the e-mail) and that it might be an indication of poor admining ability and judgement (though I also mentioned that I wasn't telling her to leave the site, and I hoped that she would continue playing there if she was enjoying it).

Not only that, but the owner has a rule against advertising of any kind on her site (affiliations only). I find this rather hypocritical and odd. 0.0

Sounds like you did the right thing. If you're feeling vindictive, go onto that site and announce what she did in the cbox, perhaps, so the members know. I wouldn't do that myself, but the horrid part of me might.

Hey, could you tell me what name that person registered under? I think I have a member who just registered to advertise, but if you could PM me the name, I'd really appreciate it.


ED: yeah, it's the same member. I've now deleted her, too.

I've been getting rpg ads through my email lately too, and it definitely was mass-mailed because I got the exact same email sent to three different email accounts. x.x I just deleted them, but I'll probably reply next time to tell them to bugger off.

If someone did that on my forum, I would seriously blacklist their site, and make it PUBLIC on my forums.

I've had that happen on multople occassions.

=__= Irritated the heck out of me, and they were dealt with. Funny thing is they didn't PM any admin/mod accounts, but the members were annoyed and posted the PM publically. xDD

You know... I think I know EXACTLY who you're talking about, because I had the SAME thing happen to me. Funny thing is... I have 4 characters, and of those 4, she emailed three of them, and a whole bunch of other people with multiple characters. I found it more amusing than anything, and I did send an email back to her saying "Hey, you emailed me THREE times" - and I also kindly told her to stop because it was rude and inconsiderate and wrong. She never did return to the site, and I recently deleted her as a user.

I definitely dislike it when people join a forum solely for the purpose of advertising, and via email/PM at that. I mean... would they appreciate it if we did it to them? No, probably not, which is why we don't. Agh. You did the right thing. But I can imagine how frustrating it must be, to see her site so active.

I would return the favour.

Register to use the email to explain why the advertisement was deleted, why it is not acceptable, and why they have been IP banned for taking advantage.

But then I'm getting POed lately with people taking advantage

Urgh. The same thing happened to me. The girl didn't realize that I was the admin of the board though. I just ignored it and deleted her account. I actually find it kinda funny I'm not the only one this has happened to with her.

I think it's generally called member poaching from where I come from. I definately frown upon it. She should advertise like everyone else with a bit of elbow grease instead of registering on sites and pming members.

For the record: She sent an e-mail to all three of my accounts, including my admin account.

I am in the process of posting about this little incident at Meliora to explain what happened (using no specific information other than the user's name) and highlight the importance of not advertising this way. I want to make sure that everyone is clear on the fact that I don't approve of this, and I would like to be notified if something like this happens again. X_X

I find it rather interesting that she has done this numerous times (her targetting Thiasa just blows my mind), despite the fact that she has probably been contacted about it just as many times.

Edit: I also find it rather interesting that she doesn't allow advertising of any kind on her site- only affiliating.

Ugh. The problem is that it's really hard to (I dunno, 'punish' seems harsh, but that's what I want to say) enforce anti-spamming rules with people who do this. I mean, really, there's not a whole lot you can do to prevent it. Yeah, you can ban them and delete the emails, but your members have already seen them, and as crazy as it sounds sometimes they manage to snag a few from you. It's like you can only try to clean up after them and do some damage control; you can't stop them from doing it.

Someone did it on my RPG site so I gathered my members and asked them all if they'd been sent PM's by the member asking if they would join their board... Half of them had and they were the better half of the group, great posts, friendly to new members, chatty and perfect and every single one of them had replied to the email telling the person to get lost. I was so proud. XD

She even sent it to me, I never looked at the site though, not sure what it was about, probably Harry Potter considering we were a Marauder site.

I also get loads from email, one admin of a site even gave email addresses to advertises with messages along the likes of, "She/he'd be good at that character." Not the best way to keep your members active on your site but even worse that she was willingly giving people email addresses, I think most people on that site had their emails hidden, a clear indication they didn't want weirdo's emailing them.

But yeah, I never look a site PM'd or Emailed to me. I find it rude. You did the right thing by deleting her. But if she doesn't allowing advertising you should say in her cbox that she should consider her own Advertising method before disallowing others to do the same... Grr. Stupid person!

We just got something like that in our c-box this past Monday. The person registered in our c-box and simply posted their board url. Spelled the name of their board wrong in the url, too, so it the only thing they accomplished was annoying the hell out of us.

You totally did the right thing. I had that happen on my (inactive) Star Wars board not long ago, and then I've gotten at least two or three e-mails at a few different Gmail accounts that I've set up asking me to join some Panfandom game.

The one that did it on my Star Wars board first, I think, sent me a PM with the following:

Then they gave me the link. Just the horrible spelling alone was enough to make me twitch. The site...was pretty much the same, as far as I can remember.

They then posted the same ad, basically, on the board, despite the fact that it's closed and no one's going to see it.

The second RP ads I've gotten have been through e-mail. At least two of them have been sent to e-mail accounts I've used for them, although one of them wasn't even role play related, it was a message board for writers. I won't give the entire ad, but I'll post the gist of it.

There are also three more paragraphs in the ad, and then a link to some Insane Journal community.

I immediately responded and told them not to e-mail any more ads to that e-mail address they sent it to, as well as my main e-mail address, which I believe I've also gotten at least one ad at. They've also IM'd me, advertising for a Charmed or Buffy RP or something.

The thing is that outside of maybe doing an LJ interest search and somehow finding my profile (I have Supernatural and Gilmore Girls in my interests, I believe, so it's possible that they searched for either of those), I have no clue how they found those e-mail addresses they sent it to, or my IM name...especially since I have never once played in a Panfandom game, and I intend to keep it that way.

Advertising like that is a big no-no in my book. Especially if they're sending PMs out to every other registered account on a message board. It's rude to try and solicite players to another site like that- it's like saying "hey, come join the bigger, better board! We're fuuuuuun!" And it's just bad moderating, which won't keep you on the good side of the mod's who's boards your doing the advertising on.

I can't help but laugh that the person you're talking about (to the OP) doesn't allow it on their site and only allows affiliating, yet pulls that crap on other boards. Sounds like they need to go back to Moderating 101 class.

X_X

And I just received a PM advertisement here. Yes, it's been forwarded to ShinLi. No, I didn't reply. However, I am now thoroughly irritated.

Ugh. Hadn't had a problem with this before, but today, I had someone PMing all my members. A bunch of them complained to me, so I banned the advertiser. They weren't a member, they weren't applying, so if the people who are members complain, then I don't have a problem with banning them.

They came back onto the cBox and were all

'Guest: Yeah, the internet is serious business!
Guest: Obviously we're pretty insecure about people leaving this forum if we have to ban people like that. :)'

Way to handle it with maturity, people!

I can't help but wonder if they appreciated the irony of suggesting we were insecure when they don't have any kind of advertising on their place? I'm guessing not.

Blacklisting is a bad idea, as that's another thing that's frowned upon by some from the RP'ing community. I just wanted to reply on that, not attacking you or anything. But when I see a forum blacklisting another forum/member or whatever publically, that's a bit turn off for me, and in my eyes very imature.

But yeh pm/e-mail advertising is not the way to go about it, and I hate it actually. It's so disrespecting to other forums, and defiantly to the forums that are victim of this. I don't ban people who pm advertise, I simply restrict them from using the pm system, ever :lol:

I'd've just replied that my members had complained about the amount of unwanted spam they'd suddenly received in their inboxes. And then ignored them.

Some people are just frickin' rufe and with no sense of irony at all. If you can't advertise on their forum, why should they get to advertise on yours? And PMing ads is just so WRONG, to about the Nth degree of wrongness. It can't ever be right!

I came here at first for the express purpose to advertise my site's dilemma and try and get help, and even I think that's obnoxious and wrong. Sad.

I very recently got a similar e-mail. The same spiel; "I've seen your writing and could not help but e-mail you with this opportunity to join my brand new site with a lot of potential...blah blah." I know my e-mail is readily available to a lot of people, because as an Admin you need your members to be able to contact you outside of the board if necessary. The thing that got to me about this particular advertisement was the fact that yes, it was a mass e-mail and the other e-mail addresses were on display for everyone else to see.

I promptly replied requesting that this particular person remove my address from the list and never contact me again, and that I had no intention of looking at or joining her new site with a lot of potential. One day later I received another e-mail, all sent to the same addresses as before, to inform us all that her site wasn't being viewed properly when firefox was used, and could we please not judge on first impressions and revisit.

Lady, I've already judged on first impressions. And my one of you was not good. Some people are just dense. -.-

That's pretty much the same email I got from some admin looking to throw her link out there. She got my email and basically bulk emailed several members. Then she emailed me three times (four in total, one for each account) and I ended up replying...

"If I wanted to join your site, I would have done it by now."

I never did get a reply.