OK, so I'm a bit thick, but why should a first-time poster be suspect? There's a first time for everyone in everything. You don't need to follow a link if you feel doubtful, but a polite response costs nothing.
We should always try to be welcoming and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I think that a lot of first posts that appear suspect, are actually people who are a bit nervous, and don't quite know how to post. Many of them may never have used a forum before, I know I hadn't when I joined.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
There is a genuine issue with spammers who turn up as first-time posters. A common method is resurrecting a years old post and posting their spam link to whatever they are flogging. That means they have run a web search for keywords matching their product to find any forum which they can spam. Call me an old cynic but this isn't the behaviour of a shy first-time poster.
Other fora make it harder to do this, e.g. first posts must be approved by moderators, no links allowed until a certain number of posts made etc. This forum doesn't use these tools and passes on the duty to us. The spam alert thread is handy for identifying suspicious posts giving the opportunity for benefit of the doubt discussions.
I'm hopeless at technology, but if you see a link you don't know, can't you just ignore it? A new poster asking about how to prune his shrubs isn't likely to be much of a threat and won't need a link. It would really put me off to be 'approved' by some faceless moderator as if I were from a sleezy underworld. I only wanted to ask about that big bush in the corner.....
Post approval discourages new posters of all stripes, unfortunately. There are many forums on the internet. If they need a quick answer, they'll go and post on Mumsnet or somewhere else, not wait an unspecified time for their post to even show up.
There is a genuine issue with spammers who turn up as first-time posters. A common method is resurrecting a years old post and posting their spam link to whatever they are flogging. That means they have run a web search for keywords matching their product to find any forum which they can spam. Call me an old cynic but this isn't the behaviour of a shy first-time poster.
It's not actual spammers posting spam we are discussing - it's preemptive strikes where the person hasn't done anything at all but is told they are acting suspciously. So maybe the first post doesn't look quite right or brings up an old post -
So what? Why does it matter? We don't need to be preemptive or 'on the alert'. If there is actual spam, we delete actual spam. There are thousands of eyes on the posts. Spammers are not going to "get away" with "deceiving" anyone.
Quite a few new posters are excited about a new blog or Youtube gardening channel they have just started and they have been treated as spammers instead of excited gardeners. They are not selling anything. One new poster put up a picture of chrysanthemums and was told she was a spammer because no real gardener would be interested in them.
It's like an obstacle course / gauntlet / test that new arrivals have to win in order to be 'accepted'. They get laughed at and mocked for trying to 'infiltrate' the group. It's all totally unnecessary. There is a real person behind the user name. We don't need suspicion because we have tech.
I feel like there is such a general sense of threat from online and phone scamming that it's making the forum sit on high alert for potential harm that isn't there.
We can assume good faith in the absence of actual spam.
I think we need to be a bit careful here. Mostly, I think the forum is very welcoming, but just occasionally people can be a little sharp with new posters, often believing they are spammers, when often they are not. It would imo be wrong to suggest this s an unwelcoming place, it is not.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Posts
Maybe this one will work😊
We should always try to be welcoming and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.
I think that a lot of first posts that appear suspect, are actually people who are a bit nervous, and don't quite know how to post.
Many of them may never have used a forum before, I know I hadn't when I joined.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
It would really put me off to be 'approved' by some faceless moderator as if I were from a sleezy underworld. I only wanted to ask about that big bush in the corner.....
Just click on Flag, then click on Spam.
Mostly, I think the forum is very welcoming, but just occasionally people can be a little sharp with new posters, often believing they are spammers, when often they are not.
It would imo be wrong to suggest this s an unwelcoming place, it is not.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border