spammer mr griffin...

[planthelper]

seems to me that member mr griffin is a spammer.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=19492

i am not sure but, i often check the todays top posters page and i think (as said i'm not sur 100%) i saw a few days ago mr. griffin 29 posts today!!

i think our sites tolerance for spam is very low, what action should we take?

[t st tantra]

please be patient with my friend mr griffin.he is experiencing complications from prescription antidepressants.mania or hypomania appear involved.

i am quite concerned but at a bit of a loss..........

my expectation was he would come down after the meds wore off but he seems to need to fly at the moment.

hopefully reactions here will give him perspective........

t s t .

[GingaNinja]

I think his posts before this recent period, show the wealth of info he has to offer to this forum. He seems a very knowledgable person that is just in a tough space at the moment.

I guess you could just wait it out a little longer and see if things change at all. I dont think it would be a good idea to kick him out for this

[PD.]

I think his posts before this recent period, show the wealth of info he has to offer to this forum. He seems a very knowledgable person that is just in a tough space at the moment.

Not only a wealth of information, a very generous member also!

[MORG]

Just sounding like an iPod at the moment...

[PD.]

LOL morg.

[Vertmorpheus]

Bit like when ppl crack up cos of drunk patrons in licensed premises, surely?

Let's just hope the statistical analysis method isn't applied in a wholesale sense, as surely on any day of the week there's SOMEONE with the highest number of posts, and that someone might just be (probably is) having ar ough week. That's why they here, not off talking to their significant other, their garden, or their budgie. Noone cares if Devance posts 44 pages of essentially random pick from google per day, do they? (nothing gainst devance, i find him to be something of a flea market of new ideas, but you get what i mean).

Long as we keep the member at hand,500 feet from Katie Holmes, we should be fine!

Hope all works out mr griffonium, hard to be on the level in a world with so many lumps n wriggles.

And maybe more helpful to can this whole thread... or take it up with him before making it a matter of public stoning? Don't get me wrong, I'm as up for public trials, ridicule and examination as the next puritan, just in this instance sounds like a bit of patience will go a lot further than a bit of number crunching.

VM

[baphomet]

I was becoming a little frustrated until I looked at his posts and realised who he was, it was clear before this thread that quite a few people here care about him and that he is quite generous, and I know that he has been having a hard time lately.

I have a suggestion, why not merge the threads entitled 'Finding myself with music' and his posts from 'Religion yet' into one thread and maybe even eliminate the need for un necessary posts by asking him to edit his list of favourite songs or at least to try keeping the number of posts to a minimum?

And I'd like to ask him please not to start any more threads like the ones about tarot cards, etc? Please try to post things that are relevant or of some importance, thanks.

I don't think discipline is in order and I would totally understand if he ignores my request but I think the situation will improve soon anyway.

Good luck mate

[Sassy]

Agreed , Mr G. is knowledgable and generous , he just seems to be having manic moment.

Get well G.

[planthelper]

it's allways heart warming to see how much support members get if somebody says something about them which can be wrongfully seen as an attack.

problem is, many members change there names often (as often as allowed) and than i got no idea who they are.

a person, who has composed many good posts and then changes his name and post whores suddenly, could be very easely be evaluated as potentially troublesome.

when i looked up quite a few posts of this member, i saw that pretty all of them were spam, and had no connection with the topic matter.

if i would know what alias this member has, i am sure i would have the same (protective)view as most of you,

but i don't, my aim is to keep up the standard of this forum, the comment of "puplic stoneing" is totaly uneccessary.

[ballzac]

I think it has gotten to the point where discussion on the matter should certainly be welcomed, so good on you PH for raising the topic.

I personally wasn't sure if he was trolling or just having problems, and I wasn't aware of him at all until he started posting a lot of irrelevant posts. As I've said in the past regarding other members, most notably warrioe-sage, I don't mind what topics people start as I have the ability to just ignore threads by certain members, but when they start to bring down pre-existing threads, it can become problematic. However, Mr Griffin's irrelevant posts don't seem to be causing to much of a problem at this stage. People are mostly just ignoring him and continuing with on topic discussion. The main problem with WS was that he would post offensive crap that would actually drag topics down into a flame war. Don't really see that happening with MG, but the situation probably needs a little bit of monitoring on our part, and effort on MG's part, to prevent it getting out of hand.

And VM, it's always hard to tell how much of your posts are humour for its own sake, and how much is a serious point you are making, but in PH's defense, I have to say that numbers were clearly not the motivation behind bringing this up, and it was probably a little pointless for him to use the numbers as a justification. He is certainly not the only one who noticed a problem, and yes, a little bit of patience can go a long way. But it's a matter of degree. I think patience can wear a little thin after a while.

Having said all that, I have had my bad days, and helped drag threads into the gutter. I'm amazed that there haven't been any times where people have pushed for me to be banned. I am certainly grateful that this community has so much tolerance and patience. One thing we have to remember is that generally none of the crap that goes on online goes on when people meet in person. I've had many an argument online, and I believe that any of the people that I've argued with online, I would probably get along with really well in person. In light of this, if MG came to a meet, and when everyone introduced themselves to him, he just rattled off a list of songs, would we tell him he needs to stop or leave? Doubt it.

Don't really know what my point is. Bottom line is, he's not causing that much of a problem at this stage.

[Vertmorpheus]

Of course it seems that way when it's aimed at you, doesn't it? I found it, and hold it to be, entirely necessary. If it's ok with you, I might just decide what I find necessary, thank you very much all the same.

What, you call for public opinion on a member but are above it yourself? There's a name for that, yknow.

As the wise man once said "shit splats back when thrown".

As for names,how does Datura "---------m" sound?

If stones make you feel like a bastard, try Nerf projectiles, same shit different stink.

"seems to me that member mr griffin is a spammer...... i think our sites tolerance for spam is very low, what action should we take?" - PH

If you say... owed cash to the tax office... would you prefer they just sent you a letter or a phone call, took it up with you, as an adult, on the basis of their own deductions (NPI ) or you ok with them sticking a sign up in front of your house saying "PH is a tax cheat,well ok he might not be, but he looks like he might be, lets blacken his name before taking him to task over it anyway.... so, what should we as a community do?".

The community shouldn't be put in that position, not when there's any kind of "authority" that should be doing its job on it's own merits, unafraid to upset the apple cart. A good judgement is a good judgement, and if you make a bad one, ppl going to notice.

Drawing long bows, making ourselves look a bit of a dick is never nice, we all do it sometimes, bummer of a thing. But it isn't anyone else's fault, and the descriptives any observer chooses to attach don't change the fundamentals of the original statement or it's impact. I call public stoning, and if it had've gotten into that side of things any more deeply, I can't see you saying "hey, steady on fellas, maybe its not as bad as it seems!". I don't think anyone else can either. We do so love a good old fashioned mob, as a species.

Popularism is ok, I guess,certainly popular... but kinda makes authority based on it, redundant in any capacity other than the benefits it itself can continue to derive from being one in the first place.

Now it's an ugly bag of shit with some poor geezers name on it, when it shoulda been a neutral but freshly scented private message. lovely. Let's not even get into what that may or may not be doing to his or her state of mind. Sure the plants get helped but yeah... yuck. take a shower kinda stuff.

I don't come here for that.

VM

edity... grant ya that, zac, but I'll mail a dollar to anyone that can find anything even slightly vague or hard to pick about my post up there, in relation to this. Obviously I don't LITERALLY mean "lets throw big hard sharp rocks cos PH said to!", do I? I use it as a common figure of speech... It's pretty straightfoward. Humour, if you haven't noticed, is something I usually make at the expense of anyone BUT members or actual personalities. I may exaggerate numbers, use goofy fun words, hehe, like "scallywag" and "thingamejig" (how bohemian) but the POV is pretty clear.

Edited November 26, 2008 by Vertmorpheus

[ballzac]

I can see why you take issue with this thread, and the fact/manner that this issue was raised. However, I think that positive outcomes have already been realised. Planthelper and I both believed that there was the possibility for a problem to develop. I for one don't bother PM people who make erratic posts and do not seem to respond coherently to others comments, because I don't expect to get a coherent reply to a PM either. I'm sure there are probably other members who were wondering if MG's posting style would get out of hand.

Now, PH and I, and any other member that reads this thread have been informed of the situation, and will certainly give MG more leeway than what we may have without the prior knowledge that other members here clearly have. At the risk of hurting this guys feelings by starting this thread, I think it was well worth it. Perhaps the title was a bit prejudicial, but we all make mistakes in the way we go about things.

Maybe you should have PM'd Planthelper to let him know that you thought this thread was unnecessary, rather than shaming him in public

[t st tantra]

i thought a public reply making all aware of the situation was better than contacting ph by pm.

a pm to mg may not have been much value,dont know.

but what if he did not have a friend who knows him here?

t s t .

[incognito]

for such open-minded people we sure can be critical.

[ballzac]

i thought a public reply making all aware of the situation was better than contacting ph by pm.

Haha. I was actually having a lighthearted go at VM's suggestion that PH should have contacted MG py PM.

[occidentalis]

If you say... owed cash to the tax office... would you prefer they just sent you a letter or a phone call, took it up with you, as an adult, on the basis of their own deductions (NPI tongue.gif) or you ok with them sticking a sign up in front of your house saying "PH is a tax cheat,well ok he might not be, but he looks like he might be, lets blacken his name before taking him to task over it anyway.... so, what should we as a community do?".

VM I think you are using a poor metaphor here

I think PH's choice to go to the group and try and get consensus on an appropriate action was excellent

I don't think it had any effect of shaming him in public. Mr G has already created that effect by himself to whatever extent it was ever likely to be created.

Personally I find his recent posts really annoying and my initial thought was that he should be suspended for a couple of weeks to chill out

however I have been impressed by the compassion shown in this thread and I understand that my reaction was perhaps not the best course of action.

[Evil Genius]

Is it possible to view a name history? It happens to me all the time that i lose Track of Members cause they change their online identity! Then i assume they are dead n stuff. And suddenly they popp off again and then it saddens me when i think about all the great conversations we could have had in the year or two it took me to realise who the guy actually is! ;-)

edit: oh, and please dont blame PH for trying to keep up the standards. Thats what always distinguished us from many others! How could PH know that he aint a spammer? I wondered about the posts myself and i had absolutely no clue who he was before the name change. And to be honest, i still dont know. All i know is that quality members often leave a forum as soon as they lose the overview because of too many shit posts!

How about giving him his very own Music Thread! Call it the G POD and Mr. Griffin finally has a place where he can post as much as he wants! Mr. G, i hope your feeling better soon. Honestly! bye Eg

Edited November 26, 2008 by Evil Genius

[Torsten]

I have asked people to let the mods and admin know when problems develop with a member or in a forum. the sooner we know about it the less time it wastes for everyone. so, when PH gives us all the heads up about a new name that is messing up the forums then he is doing the right thing.

if people go changing their names then they can't automatically draw on their reputation - cos they have none other than the recent history viewable from their profile. It took me about 10 minutes before it clicked who Mr Griffin was, by which time I had already edited one of this messy threads and posted a warning for him. Tough!

I did pm him privately and got an explanation, and I think for the time being it's only fair we accommodate some of these issues and help him get through it all. He's been a great asset to this community so I don't mind if we all have to do a bit of cleaning up after him. People go through phases. That said, please mods if you see one of his spammy threads just combine all consecutive posts into one post. That should fix the majority of the problem.

[planthelper]

ok, somebody told me mg's old nickname and as you might have guessed it, i think very highly of this person, even more so i admire he's knowledge, aswell, he has offered me once a tool in a very generous fashion, without even knowing me.

i feel to discuss this openly was the best option, and one can tell already now, that the "air" around this issue has been vented, leaves me to say just one more thing,

all the best, mr griffin!

Edited November 26, 2008 by planthelper

[MORG]

Penny's dropped here.

All the best Mr. G. Look after yourself.

[Vertmorpheus]

oh, well, that's very big of all of you.

If I was that big about things, I'd fall over. I'd need some kinda support crew to prop me up. People willing to hold me up so that later on they can benefit fromm something I may have to offer them... oh, wait.

Somewhere, a hundred monasteries and ethical think tanks bemoan their loss to this place.

Something mighta vented, but there's still an awful fucking smell around. I guess after a few years you don't notice it anymore though.

VM

[apothecary]

If this is the worst of our problems then we are doing so fine.

Bring on the new, improved Mr Griffin!

[MORG]

oh, well, that's very big of all of you.

Dude, why the acid tone?

If I read you right you're implying that well wishes from members in this thread carry the ulterior motive to benefit from a reputedly generous member upon recovery.

Look at Mr G's posted topic history and there's a trend that demands attention.

[Torsten]

People willing to hold me up so that later on they can benefit fromm something I may have to offer them... oh, wait.

It's not like you to twist things around. Oh wait, yes it is.

It's not that we support people in the hope of benefiting from them later, rather it is that we support people who have been constructive members here. Anything different would be silly and beyond the scope of this forum. I mean, you'd be one of the first to whinge about the direction of this place if this forum became a first call port for every stranger who had a mental breakdown.

What people here are saying is that we have plenty of patience for one of our own, but not so much when it comes to completely new members.

This has NOTHING to do with any expectation for the future, but rather is a reflection of the cohesive bonds between members here.

Mr Griffin made himself look like a noob through the name change - hence the different angles people have approached this.

Somewhere, a hundred monasteries and ethical think tanks bemoan their loss to this place.

Never fear, they can have you in exchange

there's still an awful fucking smell around. I guess after a few years you don't notice it anymore though.

3 years and 5 months to be exact. I still notice it, but I mostly try to ignore it