Member Discussions

:(

Necromancy is the first step to lichdom.

He is well on his way...

-Syn

Yeah what's with that anyways? Those threads were dead for a reason. :P

It's a cheap advertising ploy certain mud owners use from time to time - spam the forums with posts that contain a short comment followed by an advert for their mud. It's rude and reeks of desperation, but with an unmoderated forum there's not really much you can do about it.

It's a cheap advertising ploy certain mud owners use from time to time - spam the forums with posts that contain a short comment followed by an advert for their mud. It's rude and reeks of desperation, but with an unmoderated forum there's not really much you can do about it.

Sounds like a solid business plan to me then ;)

heh

-Syn

Dunno, I guess this is why some forums software have a facility to "lock" threads if they havent been responded to in {admin-configured} days. Though I guess then the spammers would just make new threads =(

Btw, It'd be spiffy if on the TMC homepage the "@ Mud Humor and Anecdotes" bits were clickable to go to the particular forum

Necromancy pisses me off.

It's a cheap advertising ploy certain mud owners use from time to time

Reminds me of how people like to use their signature to constantly advertise their game(s) as well.

> Reminds me of how people like to use their signature to
> constantly advertise their game(s) as well.

Then I suggest you educate yourself.

Advertising in posts:

http://www.mudconnect.com/tmcfaq.html#Answer3

Question: How often may I post an advertisement for my mud, is everyday acceptable?

Answer: In general, somewhere between one and two weeks is acceptable. Everyday posting will likely get you and your mud flamed on the boards.

Advertising in signatures:

http://www.mudconnect.com/discuss/discuss.cgi?mode=MSG&area=general&message=10302#10302

Rgnthm: "What's the official 'ruling' on signatures that have advertisments in them? For instance, if I was looking for builders or playtesters, would I be able to put that into my signature, or would that be ungood?"

Icculus: "Yep, go for it."

Then I suggest you educate yourself.

I suggest you cool it, as I didn't say anything about it being illegal. I'm merely poking fun about your comment on "cheap advertising". Thread necromancy to get some ads in here and there is shameless. Using signatures as a poster board for one's game isn't much better; especially considering how much more frequently they are displayed. That's all there is to it.

Apparently the irony was lost on you.

"Thread necromancy to get some ads in here and there is shameless. Using signatures as a poster board for one's game isn't much better; especially considering how much more frequently they are displayed."

I completely disagree.

Think about it a little. A sig expresses
something about yourself that you want to share. If
you spend much of your free time on a car repair
website, putting that url in your sig isn't shameless...
it's part of who you are because it's what you
spend the precious moments of your free time on.

If I spend my free time on some codebase, or some
political movement, or some spiritual practice, I'll
be double dipped in crap before I allow you without
protest to pass judgment that putting it in my sig is wrong.
Can it be done rudely? Sure. Is it
per se "not much better" than necromantic adspam?
Hell no.

The difference here is that if Threshold is doing what
KaVir suspects, he's engaging in deceptive behavior
that amounts to spam: clogging the "last 10" list
with inane posts *just* to advertise his mud.

It's not even close.

-Crat
http://dead-souls.net

> Thread necromancy to get some ads in here and there is
> shameless. Using signatures as a poster board for one's
> game isn't much better; especially considering how much
> more frequently they are displayed. That's all there is
> to it.

You still don't seem to understand; the purpose of a signature block is to identify the poster and their affiliations. When writing emails in a professional environment you would likely be expected include your name, position, company details, etc, within your sig. On a forum such as this the situation tends to be much less formal, but listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote.

What I was complaining about is the combination of (1) reviving several long-dead threads with short responses, and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body of each such post.

You still don't seem to understand; the purpose of a signature block is to identify the poster and their affiliations. When writing emails in a professional environment you would likely be expected include your name, position, company details, etc, within your sig. On a forum such as this the situation tends to be much less formal, but listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote.

What I was complaining about is the combination of (1) reviving several long-dead threads with short responses, and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body of each such post.

/Agree.

-Syn

You still don't seem to understand; the purpose of a signature block is to identify the poster and their affiliations. When writing emails in a professional environment you would likely be expected include your name, position, company details, etc, within your sig. On a forum such as this the situation tends to be much less formal, but listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote.

You're trying to twist the meaning to suit your own ends. A signature in a forum is an identification of the person, period. The idea that the signature space is "far more correct" to be used as a place to list one's "affiliations" here is pretentious. It's as though you're saying I'm wrong to not use my signature to advertise my own project(s).

The problem here is that you're assuming I think it's wrong to use the signature to advertise, which I don't. Sure, I think it's cheap considering how your advertisement is shown in every single post you make; soundly trumping the efforts of any single string of thread necromancy. And furthermore to that I think it's ironic to make a statement to someone else pulling some sort of "cheap advertising" move while perpetrating something similar. It's like criticizing someone for holding a sign that says "Buy Pepsi" when you have a tattoo on your arm that says "Buy Coca Cola". The effect is regardless of the intention. You may genuinely like Coca Cola and want to share that artisticly with the world by getting a tattoo of it, and it may be perfectly valid and legal to do so, however it is still an (cheap) advertisement nonetheless.

and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body of each such post.

That is an interesting distinction to make, in fact. Are you supposing that opting to use a manually appended ad over a signature ad would be more "wrong" or otherwise indicative of an intent to blatently advertise, or would they remain equative? Because regardless of the method, the advertisement appears in the post. The difference is merely in the font size. I.e, the signature having a smaller font size and thus a lower visibility than an in-message ad which benefits from the larger font size of the message body text.

> A signature in a forum is an identification of the
> person, period. The idea that the signature space
> is "far more correct" to be used as a place to list
> one's "affiliations" here is pretentious.

What I said is that "listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote". And you yourself have just said that the signature is "an identification of the person". So you need to make up your mind - is the signature block for identification, or for random quotes?

When writing professional emails addressed to clients or peers, does your sig include random funny quotes? Or does it include your name and the company you represent, along with contact details such as phone number and address?

> > and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body
> > of each such post

I know you love starting silly flame wars by picking on minor points in other peoples posts, but at least have the decency to respond to my full statements and not half of them. My full quote was:

"What I was complaining about is the combination of (1) reviving several long-dead threads with short responses, and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body of each such post."

Note the emphasis.


As an aside, I'd always assumed it was possible to switch off sigs (as it is in most forums), but can't seem to find the option for it on TMC. Anyone else managed to switch them off?

What I said is that "listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote". And you yourself have just said that the signature is "an identification of the person". So you need to make up your mind - is the signature block for identification, or for random quotes?

You appear to be lost on the use of quotes as an expression of one's feelings or thoughts; an identification of the person/self.

When writing professional emails addressed to clients or peers, does your sig include random funny quotes? Or does it include your name and the company you represent, along with contact details such as phone number and address?

Email signatures and forum signatures are not comparable. They are two very different communication mediums, subject to different forms of (n)etiquette.

I know you love starting silly flame wars by picking on minor points in other peoples posts, but at least have the decency to respond to my full statements and not half of them. My full quote was:

"What I was complaining about is the combination of (1) reviving several long-dead threads with short responses, and (2) manually adding an advert to the actual body of each such post."

Note the emphasis.

You're mistaken on what the point of my response was. I'm asking you to clarify if the use of manually appended ads somehow makes the post more or less solicitous than one using the signature to advertise. In the context of the problem that arose, what if the person commiting thread necromancy had the advertisement in the signature space instead? Would you have merely glossed over it as normal necromancy or would you still have seen it as a form of cheap advertising?

You people argue about the dumbest things.

Apparently the size of your e-peen matters more than anything else on these boards...

> > What I said is that "listing your mud affiliation is
> > actually a far more correct usage than some random
> > quote". And you yourself have just said that the
> > signature is "an identification of the person". So you
> > need to make up your mind - is the signature block for
> > identification, or for random quotes?
>
> You appear to be lost on the use of quotes as an
> expression of one's feelings or thoughts; an
> identification of the person/self.

The quotes were taken from earlier posts. I stated that "listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote". You responded with the view that "A signature in a forum is an identification of the person, period". Your stated view backs up my statement, so why are you disagreeing with me?

> Email signatures and forum signatures are not
> comparable. They are two very different communication
> mediums, subject to different forms of (n)etiquette.

There are differences, but the overall intent is still the same. As I explained to you before, "On a forum such as this the situation tends to be much less formal, but listing your mud affiliation is actually a far more correct usage than some random quote". Once again, you yourself have stated that the sig is an identification of the person.

> In the context of the problem that arose, what if the
> person commiting thread necromancy had the advertisement
> in the signature space instead?

I wouldn't have considered that any worse than regular thread necromancy (although that is also annoying, unless it's actually adding something of new value to an old discussion).

I subconsciously block out sigs (it's clear at a glance that they're not part of the regular post), and in theory it should also be possible to switch them off in your settings (most forums permit this, although I can't seem to find it on TMC now that I actually looked). The same holds true for avatars, profile information, etc. None of this data is part of the actual post, and it can be ignored, retroactively changed, etc.

"You people argue about the dumbest things."

I was about to make a remark about how an in-body
sig has this advantage and that drawback, but y'know,
for once, Epilogy, you've said something useful.

I suggest everyone go back into their hugbox
before thy make another heated post about sigs.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

(oooo look, an in-body sig! transGRESSive!)

I've never understood the use of in-body signatures here, since you can just specify a constant signature. Why bother wasting the time writing it out for each post, when you can just throw it in the actual signature?

- Aelius
Legends of Karinth

Yup... too annoying for me.

"You people argue about the dumbest things."

I was about to make a remark about how an in-body
sig has this advantage and that drawback, but y'know,
for once, Epilogy, you've said something useful.

I suggest everyone go back into their hugbox
before thy make another heated post about sigs.

-Crat
http://lpmuds.net

(oooo look, an in-body sig! transGRESSive!)

There goes crat, the usual suspect. I bet hes really trying to subtly get a massive flame war going and antagonize us all, then we can cry for moderation.

Amiright?

-Syn, oh mud humor board, i love you.

Good grief...

Links are good because you can click on them. Nobrainer. I would far rather be able to click on something in the body of a post than go through the tedium of cutting and pasting a url into my browser.

But you don't want to click on them you don't have to. Another nobrainer. So everyone is happy.

I tend to agree that the sig is a better place for advertising in every post. I also agree that the TMC FAQ makes it pretty clear that it's perfectly acceptable to advertise in your sig, but that actively advertising your game within a post should be limited.

I see a difference in the way sigs are provided here, and manually adding one.

If there is no distinction made, then I could write three paragraphs of advertising at the end of every one of my posts, and if anyone has anything to say about it, well, that's my sig!

But while that I feel advertising your game in your non-advertising posts should be limited to the signature spot allocated for it, I do agree it's a silly thing to argue about.

The only constructive thing out of all this I feel is the point about being able to click a link. After I post this, I'm going to test to see if the forum allows an html link in my sig to be clickable, just to see if that's a valid option. If not, then perhaps it should be made valid just for the ease of convenience and one less reason people would have to include ads in the body of their post.

(Comment added by Hades_Kane on Fri Mar 28 15:10:48 2008)

Ok, no, it doesn't allow HTML tags.

I would suggest maybe allowing at least the 'a href' tag if nothing else.

Another point I agree on keeping them in the 'sig' part is they are easier to mentally block out or ignore, sticking them in the body makes it harder to ignore, which is probably part of the reason some people put them there, but just like spamming the forum with adverts isn't really a good thing even if it might be more 'effective' advertising, I don't really think sigs in the body of a message belong either.

So yeah, if the 'a href' HTML tag is allowed, I don't really see any valid 'excuse' anyone would have for not keeping them there.

"So yeah, if the 'a href' HTML tag is allowed, I don't really see any valid 'excuse' anyone would have for not keeping them there."

Not sure I agree that an excuse is required.

I have various habits, some of which I guess are
annoying (such as hard returns in my posts). I'll
have to add in-body sig as a habit I have that I
had no idea actually bothered people.

Like others here, it is a habit of mine to want to
jot a little "from ME!" at the bottom of my posts.
My name, and my currently favorite url. Sometimes
it's a picture, more often one of the websites
I devote free time to.

That this requires an "excuse" is really a new one
on me. I'm totally cool with the idea that it is
*annoying*. I can understand that. Some people
have very specific ideas about where an email sig
goes in a quated reply (should it be below the
reply but after the quote? below the reply but
above the quote? Should the reply *and* sig be
below the quote? Some people really really care).

But I'm not gonna roll with the implication that
it's somehow *wrong* and requires an *excuse*.
If you believe it is so, then may that serve you
well, but expect some pushback from me, cuz I
think it's a load.

With friendly greetings, I am ever your humble

-Cratylus

Whose current favorite URL is

http://lpmuds.net/war_kittens.jpg

(Though it is subject to change)

PS also, it is not porn

I just feel that if some people are placing in-body sigs because they can't "click urls" in sig provided, then allowing clickable links in the sig space provided would further encourage the sig space being used in the manner intended. If you take exception with the word 'excuse' being tossed around, then I don't know what to tell other than my dictionary defines it as "Serve as a reason or cause or justification of" and it seemed to me that the individual that said "Links are good because you can click on them. Nobrainer. I would far rather be able to click on something in the body of a post than go through the tedium of cutting and pasting a url into my browser." seemed to be using the lack of being able to click a link as a reason, cause, or justification of people using the body as a sig.

I really don't think it's an issue worth arguing to be honest, and I'm not jumping on some 'police the forums to keep sigs in the right spot' bandwagon or anything silly like that, but rather suggesting something that I feel would benefit the forum overall.