My first and likely last post.

Hello Mark Bolton,

You are receiving this notification because your post “Re: Advise me for
Audio Book & ScreenCasting Narration Video” at “Audacity Forum” was
disapproved by a moderator or administrator.

The following reason was given for the disapproval:

The message does not fit into any other category, please use the further
information field.

Unsolicited advertising.

Dear Abby
bit perplexing that one ? Chap was talking around various equipment options and from what I could see he would benifit from buying the same gear as I bought 10 years ago. I thought a mid price condenser mic and eurorack would be money well spent and provided a link to a 30 second demo on my blogspot page so he could hear what it would sound like straight of the mixer. I made the point that studio design and mic technique are huge factors for us AMATUERS.

I ain’t selling anything … I have no commercial interests in anything. I am a Geologist. Wahh ? Huhh ??

What did I do wrong that my first post gets snipped as spam !!??

And quite peremptorily‎ so.

I was well perplexed and had a read over this BBs chit chat stuff as distict from technical topics that I am interested in. Guys there are ways of dealing with forum abuse that neednt involve making legitimate forum contributers and prospective volunteers unwelcome. I have a platform of expertise and I am good and prepared to help out people who could benifit - just for the the joy of it. Not to be it seems.

Anyhow I shall leave it to you happy few. You “Band of Brothers” as bloodlied, but unbowed you fend off the ravening hoardes of spammers.

Toodle Pip

Mark

Hi Mark,
as one of the forum administrators I apologise if one of your posts was incorrectly flagged as spam.
As I have not seen the message that was deleted I am not able to comment further on why this occurred. Needless to say, mistakes do occur from time to time, though we do of course try to minimise such errors.

I notice that you have posted a useful contribution to another topic, so I hope that this unfortunate incident has not put you off from contributing further to the Audacity community.

That is no exaggeration. The success of this community forum has made it a prime target for spam, and we have relatively few moderators, particularity during this festive time of year.

Hey Steve,

I very much apreciate your prompt and most courteous reply. I felt sure it must have been some kind of miss communication am happy to find this put straight. I was really enthusiattic to contribute to Audacity Forum. I am very ignroant when it comes to techs.- I am here to learn … I have expertise and experience and I can contribute when it comes to voice / spoken word and would be delighted to do so. I am glad to throw out suggested solutions to performance niggles.

I am on your side Guys ! I am OSS till I bleed . I want to be part of techy people being clever with voice.

Can we Kiss and make up? ~smoooch~

The problem was the link in the first topic.

Generally, links are removed from posts of all new users until they have established themselves, or if it appears appropriate, the entire post disapproved.

I was the admin who disapproved the topic that had the link to the blog post, then approved your second topic that had no link, then disapproved your next two duplicate posts that appeared to cite forum administrators as posting links. All established Forum helpers or administrators can post links.

You were not banned as there was an element of doubt.

Unfortunately, typical spammer behaviour is to register, and instead of ask a question, jump into other people’s old topics and post some response including an advertising link to their product or service, or a link to their video or blog. Links to user’s own videos and blogs are considered advertising as they provide backlinks to increase the search ranking of the user’s page.

Responses can often be carefully crafted, cut from relevant posts on this or other forums with a few changes to avoid detection. 49 out of 50 such posts are spam.

I hope you can appreciate how this happens. If you’re legitimately trying to help we’ll look forward to your future posts. If you want to repost your first post without the link, it will be approved.


Gale

Gale it’s no worries. I am up for being part of this community for what ever I am able to contribute. My area of endeavour is performasnce of spoken word meets technical production. I know loads about acting / voice / working a crowd / but am here to share knowleddge on nuts and bolts technical stuff.

Thanks Gale, I guessed that it would be something like that.
“49 out of 50 such posts are spam” makes it tricky to spot the 1 out of 50 that isn’t. I’ll raise this on the moderators list to see if we can make improvement here.

Thanks Mark, glad that is cleared up. The Audacity community is made up of all sorts of people, using Audacity for all kinds of things. Some users are “techie”, others are not, it’s not a requirement to be “techie” as there are all manner of ways that users can help each other.

Guys I am completely turned around by your sincere replies. I am flat out on your side… I do know that actors misusing the WWW can give rise to rage … when they blow your website with blisters … it gets personally confronting.

Is it possible that , had you harder players on your team, you might have had more caulk in between the tiles ?

I seem to have fallen to Earth in this community amoung a Tech Glitch ridden comunity. If you guys are fending off a 90 % chop down rate then I am shocked and angry. More so I apologise for carrying on like a SNOTTY Prima Donna for having A POST SNIFFED AT… There must be some way of sorting friend from foe a bit more efficiently ?

I am far from even understanding how to further the interests of an an oniline concern under the concomitent threat of spam and bullshit. I only now begin to apreciate what is coming down the turnpike for you guys,

When this forum first opened there was little need for “moderating” posts or other anti-spam measures, but as the forum grew in popularity (and “search engine ranking”) the amount of spam grew at an alarming rate to a point where there were more than 100 spam posts per day. More time was being spent by the forum helpers deleting spam than helping users with their Audacity questions. This was unsustainable so something had to be done. It was then that we reluctantly imposed a number of controls to combat the constant influx of spam. On the whole this has greatly benefited forum users by providing a safe environment where Audacity users can seek help with their projects. Helping users to get the most out of Audacity is what we like doing and is the purpose of this forum. Dealing with spam sadly remains a necessity that needs to be managed.

Welcome back Mark.

Indeed you, or no other posters , saw the flood of Russian SPAM of photos of folk in “interesting” positions - nor the posts that led malware links. The elves work hard here to keep this a sane and family-friendly corner of cyberspace. We hope to see you as a sensible and long-term contributor :slight_smile:

WC