Abuse or just waste of time and bandwidth?

[arvevans]

[SOLVED] [CLOSED] There are a number of threads which seem designed only to waste time and bandwidth (Bump Thread, Why Do You Like/Dislike ......, and so on. Sometimes one wonders what the purpose or intent of such threads might be:

Do they serve to collect responders whos email addresses can then be harvested and sold to, or used by, advertisers & spammers.
Are these threads being use as a means of sorting out individuals who have a particular interest or knowledge, and if so...for what purpose?
They provide a means of posting for those who really have nothing positive to contribute to other posts. Maybe this justifies the waste of bandwidth by providing an on-line outlet for some individuals.
Posts to these seemingly innocuous threads could be used to hide the transport of "hidden messages" between like minded individuals.
They might serve as a soap-box for self-serving tirades regarding a particular political or social belief.
Such threads could be manipulated to advertise, or downplay, a particular program, hardware, or operating system.
By starting multiple trivial and/or controversial threads it might be possible to trivialize or overwhelm a forum and thus minimize it's value and usability for it's intended purposes and users.


I'm not suggesting that legimite discussion of problems, methods, procedures, future directions, past experiences, and possiblities should not be performed as an on-line activity...just that some of what is initiated as 'discussion' seems questionable at best, and could be used or abused if the readers are not careful regarding what they respond to, and how they respond.
.
Several times I have seen comments to the effect of "Don't Feed The Trolls", which in these cases seems to be very good advice.
.

[JohnFH]

So what's the purpose of this thread?

One word can answer a lot of your questions: community.

[swoll1980]

bump

[calrogman]

bump

double bump, good sir/madam.

[-grubby]

These 'waste[s] of time and bandwidth' are actually just for fun. They're in the 'thread games' section for a reason, you know ;).

[hyperyoda]

Get off my lawn!

[richg]

I guess this comes under ,Duh

Rich

[bapoumba]

There are a number of threads which seem designed only to waste time and bandwidth (Bump Thread, Why Do You Like/Dislike ......, and so on. Sometimes one wonders what the purpose or intent of such threads might be:
<snip>

Oh dear, it is just about fun..


bump


double bump, good sir/madam.


Get off my lawn!
Love you guys ):P

[billgoldberg]

Where's my tin foil hat?

[FuturePilot]

Where's my tin foil hat?

The ninjas have it.

[zakany]

Do they serve to collect responders whos email addresses can then be harvested and sold to, or used by, advertisers & spammers.

Googlebot isn't a real user. Everyone else is, though.


Are these threads being use as a means of sorting out individuals who have a particular interest or knowledge, and if so...for what purpose?

Yes. For social reasons.


They provide a means of posting for those who really have nothing positive to contribute to other posts. Maybe this justifies the waste of bandwidth by providing an on-line outlet for some individuals.

Providing an on-line outlet is not a waste of bandwidth.


Posts to these seemingly innocuous threads could be used to hide the transport of "hidden messages" between like minded individuals.

Zeus has fleas.


They might serve as a soap-box for self-serving tirades regarding a particular political or social belief.

It's Clinton's fault Zeus has fleas.


Such threads could be manipulated to advertise, or downplay, a particular program, hardware, or operating system.

I judge all computer OSes by their boot times. The best OS ever was the BASIC interpreter on my Commodore 64. Everything else sux and is for noobs. No disagreement with my position is possible.


By starting multiple trivial and/or controversial threads it might be possible to trivialize or overwhelm a forum and thus minimize it's value and usability for it's intended purposes and users.

Oh sweet, sweet irony. Luscious and supple irony.

[notwen]

I like to let the admins/mods determine what's a 'waste' of 'time' and 'bandwidth' or both. I suppose if you feel such threads are a waste then why bother clicking them.

[smartboyathome]

So, here's my proposition based on what you posted:
Get rid of everything that doesn't directly have to do with support, and see how long the forum lasts. ;)

[BGFG]

The ninjas have it.

i am not missing Ninja day this year! :guitar:

[glotz]

They provide a means of posting for those who really have nothing positive to contribute to other posts.Bingo.

[sisco311]

nm

[jrusso2]

People just want attention. Like some people only post in certain forums like community chat or testimonials just for attention and to argue which young males love to do anyway.

[arvevans]

All your replies reflect the usual good humour of the group, and just about what I expected. Thanks for all the comments. Now I can mark this thread as "CLOSED" and go back to quietly harvesting email addresses from the Bump Thread. 34,506 user profiles have been exposed thus far. :-\"

Actually, I am not harvesting emails or profile information, but the potential to do so is there. All it would take is a rather small script-language program to monitor the thread and extract your information from that.
_._

[p_quarles]

All your replies reflect the usual good humour of the group, and just about what I expected. Thanks for all the comments. Now I can mark this thread as "CLOSED" and go back to quietly harvesting email addresses from the Bump Thread. 34,506 user profiles have been exposed thus far. :-\"

Actually, I am not harvesting emails or profile information, but the potential to do so is there. All it would take is a rather small script-language program to monitor the thread and extract your information from that.
_._
E-mail addresses and other private information is not exposed to other users. If there is a bug causing e-mail addresses to show up publicly, I'm certain that the staff would appreciate more details about the circumstances of this exposure.

It's not unheard of that people use a personal e-mail address as their username, but it is rare, and the admins have always agreed to fix those names for as long as I can remember.

[kavon89]

Actually, I am not harvesting emails or profile information, but the potential to do so is there. All it would take is a rather small script-language program to monitor the thread and extract your information from that.
_._

Oh no, you're right. Someone should design an e-mail service which automatically filters out junk mail so we don't worry about nasty e-mail harvesters...

[Perfect Storm]

Here's some more junk :biggrin:

http://www.imageviper.com/displayimage/132964/0/crazydog.png

[BuffaloX]

I think this thread was started to take attention away from this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1066983

Highly suspicious. :-$

[something132]

i want a cookie

[jenkinbr]

Just because I and others waste time on these threads, it does not mean that we don't have other contributions to make to the support catagories.

Email addresses and all that are kept hidden. In the several months I've been wasting time over there, I've only come across a few posts that violated the CoC, and I have reported them, and they have since been removed.

All the users who venture there follow the Code of Conduct just like everyone else. Bans/infractions can be handed out by admins just as esily in those threads as any other area of the forum.

Before server resouces come into question, let me bring up the Forum council minutes regarding The BUMP Thread:


[23:09] <ubuntugeek> Next, The bump thread Feel that they are over loading the forums unnecessarily. Drubin, you are up.
[23:10] <drubin> give me a sec writing it down :)
[23:10] <ubuntugeek> No problem, take your time.
[23:11] <drubin> We state that this is first and formost a tech support forum, yet we have this thread. I am not saying we need to get ride of these light hearted threads I am seriously wondering the extrea load they impose in the db is this nessary considering all the issues we were having at the time
[23:11] <drubin> btw the issues seemed to have calmed down a little bit
[23:11] <jdong> well I think the "issues" calming down is mere coincidence.
[23:12] <ubuntugeek> jdong: agreed
[23:12] <talsemgeest> I feel that any overuse of the forum resources is worth it for the friendships that are made in that thread. It is a great place to get to know your fellow ubuntu-forumers.
[23:12] <jdong> while I absolutely agree this up-and-down flakiness of the forum needs to be resolved and looked at seriously, I don't feel a single long thread is the cause.
[23:12] <wrtpeeps> er, hi?
[23:12] <drubin> the extra posts might slow down the quries on a whole searching/indexing of the db
[23:12] <drubin> jdong: +1
[23:12] <jdong> vBulletin doesn't really work in a way where long threads are more "expensive" to access.
[23:12] <ubuntugeek> drubin: I can assure that that bump thread isn't causing any load.
[23:12] <forumsmatthew> wrtpeeps, we will get back to your issue shortly, after we finish this on
[23:13] <forumsmatthew> *one
[23:13] <jdong> that being said, I think we do need to take a look at why on earth we have so many proxy errors.
[23:13] <jdong> ubuntugeek: any guesses?
[23:13] <ubuntugeek> It's configured wrong?
[23:13] <drubin> ubuntugeek: You have direct access to the DB's/code I would love to know the explained query when viewing the bump thread how many rows it examines
[23:13] <forumsmatthew> gremlins?
[23:13] <wrtpeeps> hold on til I go refresh myself on what my issue was
[23:13] <Snowflake> jdong: Someday you'll have to tell me how the database works (if you can). I'm curious how that operates.
[23:14] <lukjad007> Has it been narrowed down to a hardware or a software problem?
[23:14] <jdong> drubin: no more than it costs to retrieve any other 50 posts or 25 or whatever you have per page.
[23:14] <ubuntugeek> drubin: Alot of the queries are cached
[23:14] <jdong> lukjad007: it's software.
[23:14] <ubuntugeek> drubin: by vbulletin
[23:14] <drubin> ubuntugeek: Ok topic over.

--From http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2008/12/18/%23ubuntu-meeting.txt

Oh, and...

~BUMPo!~

[swoll1980]

Here's some more junk :biggrin:

http://www.imageviper.com/displayimage/132964/0/crazydog.png

If that's a real dog, it is the ugliest one I've ever had the displeasure of looking at.

[jenkinbr]

if that's a real dog, it is the ugliest one i've ever had the displeasure of looking at.
+1

[ticopelp]

One word can answer a lot of your questions: community.

Best answer in the thread, and on only the second post.


The Community Chat area is for lighthearted and enjoyable discussions, like you might find around a water cooler at work.

So casual, lightweight threads are not a waste of bandwidth -- they fulfill the purpose of the Cafe -- a sense of community, which is a valuable component of not only Ubuntu forums, but the Ubuntu philosophy that inspired the distro itself.

[etnlIcarus]

I don't know about the rest of you but I've been using pointless threads to pick up. a/s/l? 8)

[jenkinbr]

I don't know about the rest of you but I've been using pointless threads to pick up. a/s/l? 8)
a = 2867
s = #5
l = Planet 520091

(All those numbers do have meaning...)