[D] Can you figure out TET

[The Sernetian Empire]

You know what, this is all fundamentally wrong. TET is literally advertised as a chat thread, the only permitted chat thread on the forums. Naturally, when you are chatting with other people, it's normal to say "hi" or "hello" or "good morning" et cetera. So therefore, many users, including me, will do it, and then the mods come along and scold us for greetspam. However, that doesn't change the fact that people still want to talk as they would, say, if they were messaging someone or if they were speaking in real life, as opposed to making every single post a post loaded with substance.

What can we possibly do about this?

Do not spam. To quote from the One Stop Rules Shop, spam is "making a post that doesn't have any sort of use." Of specific note when talking about spam, large images are spam if left un-spoilered. This means that if you want to post a GIF, or some other kind of reaction image, it either needs to be spoilered, or you need to make sure it is small. Also in line with spam, garish posting: Don't do it.

Personally, I feel that TET's rules on spam are not adequate enough. Whether or not a post is useful is a subjective matter, therefore those who read it will post as they see fit as opposed to posting by moderation's rulebook. Maybe outline that posts which just say "hello" clog up the thread and so it counts as spam? Because as I have already said, a thread that calls itself "a space to just chill out and talk with each other" will naturally be full of these as people will want to talk to each other in a natural way on here! Many of us have formed friendships on TET as well and so when we see particular users online we are likely to greet them.

Maybe this is a bit too wild of an idea, and I don't even know if it would be technically feasible, but maybe you could introduce some sort of minimum character limit for posting on TET, or even NSG in general? Like that, we would all be prompted to say more than just "hi" while blatant spammers who go "hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii" can easily be dealt with.

I'm kinda pissed that TET has been locked, and so in future I will regulate my posts better so no F&-esque stuff lands in TET. But as I said, something really needs to be done about clear communication of what's fine and what doesn't fly.

Pretty sure this echoes what other users and the OP have said, but I just wanted to throw my own thoughts into the mix.

[Neo Lunatea]

Except that's usually covered by the 'how many day went' posts which people apparently classify as spam.

Honestly, that rule seems kind of stupid. "Have a conversation, but don't discuss this one topic that you can easily go into some degree of detail on."

This isn't Toastmasters International where the objective is to improve your public speaking skills, people go to TET to just relax and chat.

Agreed. Unless nothing even remotely interesting happened in your day, you should be able to talk about your day. The rules don't forbid it, but I heard someone classify it as spam somewhere in the thread, so.... what?

[AtaHana]

Honestly, that rule seems kind of stupid. "Have a conversation, but don't discuss this one topic that you can easily go into some degree of detail on."

This isn't Toastmasters International where the objective is to improve your public speaking skills, people go to TET to just relax and chat.

Agreed. Unless nothing even remotely interesting happened in your day, you should be able to talk about your day. The rules don't forbid it, but I heard someone classify it as spam somewhere in the thread, so.... what?

From the TET first page

TET is not your blog. Sharing life updates occasionally: fine. Making TET all about you every time you come in here: not.

So basically, do it in moderation (heh), and don't try to force the conversation back to that topic by, say, quoting yourself on that topic if people aren't interested in it

-snip-
But as I said, something really needs to be done about clear communication of what's fine and what doesn't fly.

I, along with most people on this thread, seem to agree that Luna's post here contains the examples of spam that is being discouraged, and I think it should be included in the TET rules whenever it reopens.

Also I see that some people here are conflating spam with short posts, but this is not necessarily the case. You can certainly spam with many paragraphs and you can contribute meaningfully with just a few words. The point is that pointing out the time of day you're posting or the page number has very little substance that adds nothing to the conversation and has nothing for others to comment on unless they already have a specific topic in mind

[Neo Lunatea]

Agreed. Unless nothing even remotely interesting happened in your day, you should be able to talk about your day. The rules don't forbid it, but I heard someone classify it as spam somewhere in the thread, so.... what?

From the TET first page

TET is not your blog. Sharing life updates occasionally: fine. Making TET all about you every time you come in here: not.

So basically, do it in moderation (heh), and don't try to force the conversation back to that topic by, say, quoting yourself on that topic if people aren't interested in it

-snip-
But as I said, something really needs to be done about clear communication of what's fine and what doesn't fly.

I, along with most people on this thread, seem to agree that Luna's post here contains the examples of spam that is being discouraged, and I think it should be included in the TET rules whenever it reopens.

Also I see that some people here are conflating spam with short posts, but this is not necessarily the case. You can certainly spam with many paragraphs and you can contribute meaningfully with just a few words. The point is that pointing out the time of day you're posting or the page number has very little substance that adds nothing to the conversation and has nothing for others to comment on unless they already have a specific topic in mind

Like I said, if nothing happened in your day that's interesting, but you still talk about your day, that's spam, but if you, let's say, go to the Bible museum in Washington DC (which I actually recently did do), telling people about that isn't spam because it's actually interesting.

And yeah, if spam was measured by words-per-post, we'd all be spamming the bee movie script.

[Empth]

I think I need to know if I'm part of the problem
I'm kinda the NS equivalent of a shitposter

[Neo Lunatea]

I think I need to know if I'm part of the problem
I'm kinda the NS equivalent of a shitposter

We're all indirectly part of the problem tbh

[Empth]

i was given a warning but it was for a joke

it was something like

Empth:

MDL: I hope your pillow is cold tonight for greetspam (srsly though dont just say something like "morning")

morning

[Might Delete Later]

Y'all realize saying "it's my fault" is not fixing anything at all, correct? You have to put something into actual action, so when it comes back I suggest taking a break or making an active effort to be better.

[Nilokeras]

I don't use TET so I don't have direct experience or skin in the game so take this with a grain of salt, but the problems with spam in TET seem like they're just the most recent and glaring outgrowth of a larger problem: a lack of curatorial interest and capacity on the mods/admin's part, and a symbiotic malaise on the part of the user base.

spam is what happens when new TET iterations are created more or less automatically, and nobody from the mod team bothers to read them or guide its content as it is created. it means that rules go unenforced and then forgotten. it means that when infractions do occur, there are 200 pages get through in a trawl. this feeds into moderation's concurrent problem with getting to reports made in the moderation forum in a timely manner, leads to mods getting annoyed at their workload and which leads in turn to breakdowns in the relationship between mods and the forum as everyone involved gets irritated at each other.

spam is also, on the flipside, of course what happens when users don't bother to familiarize themselves with the rules or do the work of reminding people of the rules or reporting infractions. this problem gets worse when reports take longer and longer times to be responded to, or as the people who do care get overwhelmed by people that don't or lose energy. it's a nasty feedback loop.

once a forum's culture breaks down like this it's hard to rebuild it, like any community or workplace's culture. it's going to require work from both the TET community and the mods to get back to where it needs to be.

whether the mods want to bother doing their part or keep up the status quo of letting the forum go to seed while tinkering with their toy collection on the gameplay side of things is out of our control. that leaves it up to everyone here.

if you're a TET user and are frustrated at the spam, organise amongst yourselves to create a group of users that will step up and curate the thread: remind people of the rules as the thread goes along and report problems to the mods promptly. use this thread to draft new rules that might better suit TET, and propose them to the mods.

nobody is going to save TET except for you. so get to it.

[Hurdergaryp]

There have been constant reminders of the rules in TET over the years, and those reminders have been constantly ignored by those cretins who only exist to ruin things for others.

[Chungkuo Minkuo]

Y'all realize saying "it's my fault" is not fixing anything at all, correct? You have to put something into actual action, so when it comes back I suggest taking a break or making an active effort to be better.

It is so ridiculous, a desperate attempt to come off as more mature. I have seen these people reported for well over a year now for doing this and obviously there has been no change. RWDT was closed permanently, maybe time for TET to go that way too.

[Revived Unclear]

Y'all realize saying "it's my fault" is not fixing anything at all, correct? You have to put something into actual action, so when it comes back I suggest taking a break or making an active effort to be better.

It is so ridiculous, a desperate attempt to come off as more mature. I have seen these people reported for well over a year now for doing this and obviously there has been no change. RWDT was closed permanently, maybe time for TET to go that way too.

Who is this person???

But for real though, it shouldn't be closed, but at the very least it should have older guard that frequent TET reminding people of the rules, and at the very most, some actual stricter rules, but it doesn't need to be sunsetted

[Chungkuo Minkuo]

It is so ridiculous, a desperate attempt to come off as more mature. I have seen these people reported for well over a year now for doing this and obviously there has been no change. RWDT was closed permanently, maybe time for TET to go that way too.

Who is this person???

But for real though, it shouldn't be closed, but at the very least it should have older guard that frequent TET reminding people of the rules, and at the very most, some actual stricter rules, but it doesn't need to be sunsetted

They have been. It has been ignored. How much more handholding do you need? The forum is 13+, from that age you are old enough to understand the basic concept of "taking responsibility".

[Statesburg]

Sure, many apologies are performative, but that doesn’t mean that they all are. It isn’t a good idea to speak for others. They often have good intentions, and they do need to learn. But not everyone is a clone of whatever spammer of the week pops up. Stay in your lane.

[Ferrocarriles Argentinos]

my proposal is that we lock tet down forever

[Natkr]

my proposal is that we lock tet down forever

i second this

capiche

[Luna Amore]

Alright, we are kind of dancing in circles to nowhere here.

Some good suggestions that we will look into incorporating. When TET does reopen, we will be leaning into heavier punishments (bans) for repeat offenders.