Spamming

Spamming is defined as the action of soliciting bulk information to no one in particular. Also referred to as Stupid, Pointless, Annoying Messages.

Exact legal definition here: http://www.spamhaus.org/consumer/definition/

Example:
Bob has motive X for sending message M. Bob does not have a particular recipient in mind & Bob has to steal or harvest recipients in order to send message M. Motive X regardless of its alignment falls under the of spamming.

Examples

A few things that will get you branded as a spammer:

 Collecting profile addresses from the list of online (<URL:seek_members.do?logouttime=1800&amp;orderby=last_seen>) people to send a generic & dreaded "hi" message.
 Visiting random (<URL:random_member.do>) profiles & inviting them to take your poll.
 Returning to peoples' profile pages & continuously & explicitly adding yourself to the list of visitors -- this is also Undesired Stalking.
 Inviting random people to a wiki.
 Jumping across random wikis (<URL:random_wiki.do>) or diaries & commenting, editing or posting irrelevant or unrelated information.
 Adding useless information to a wiki or flagging its' contents without changing them just to draw the attention of said wiki's fans or followers.

Note that by default one is a spammer; arguing the case that a "block" function exists in case the victim is malcontent is an abuse of their rights. This diminishes the quality & integrity of free speech & is the equivalent of asking someone to block their ears or go away if they do not like what they hear: this is unanimously regarded as culturally indecent almost everywhere on the planet in this day & age & is not a valid legal request in most places.

Consequences

Although the consequences do apply in general to everyone, only regular spammers need to be worried of the legal consequences. However, this does not allow one to be careless: spamming is considered a waste of members' valuable time as most of us do have to manage our time to the minute during the course of a working day. Doing this knowingly is even more serious of an issue & can result in personal bans.

Spamming is illegal in the United States, Germany, Canada, UK, Ireland, and many other countries. In rare circumstances, this can result in legal damage, though the most likely case is you will be blacklisted & denied access to most of the organized Internet, with increased limits for further infractions.

See http://www.spamhaus.org/ (available in the German language as well) for more accurate details & how to blacklist people, servers, individual IP addresses & more. Additional details on how to protect yourself from it & help fight the war on Spam against Spammers.

I don't want to be a spammer! What must I do?

Always ensure the recipients of your message are either interested in your message, or would not object to receiving it. If they do, it is not the end of the world, but do promptly correct yourself to not repeat the mistake again. An accompanying apology is also not a bad idea.

If you don't KNOW the recipient personally, keep the content of the contact relevant to the scope of the location you found their profile information from. This applies especially to voting polls, invites to wikis & friendship requests on top of your regular EP messaging. This does fall under the of "asshole" (see What is an Asshole?) in EP as it does waste the time of members who simply are not interested in general statements made to them that do not concern them.

Contacting members for commercial use is prohibited due to the Terms of Use of Elfpack.

If someone is spamming you...

There are several steps you can take to discourage them.

 Ask the spammer to stop contacting you. Some spammers are, deep down, genuinely nice people who will stop spamming you if you ask nicely.
 Ignore or Block the sender if your requests go ignored. (Contact [Schlachter] for methods of blacklisting members access to your profile pages & contact mechanisms -- the "block" functions do not always prevent all spamming actions).
 Report the member, especially if their intention is detrimental to others. The Guards will then decide whether to take further action. Continued spamming may result in a ban.


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