In my short tenure with the community, I have seen this subject
SPAM as a reoccurring topic. Yes,
- Spamming is frustrating
- The more XiledGaming members you have, the more duplicated messages you get.
It was pointed out in previous post, Spamming is a part of a Generals accepted responsibility. I can not argue with that but I will say this; As per the information taught in the Generals class, the following facts are a stable within our community and we are failing to use it effectively.
- The CLAN FORUMS is the centralized local for your clans to communicate.
- Private Messaging is one of five ways to communicate with clan.
- Our primary form of communication is XILEDGAMING FORUMS.
The reoccurring theme here is the FORUMS = COMMUNICATION.
If you have a thread marked for information, keep it clean of "THIS or THAT" games. If you have a thread for "Meeting Notes", keep it clean from people talking about what color car they bought and other stupid nonsense. And inform those who post junk in your threads that the purpose of the thread is not games/junk.
DONT PROMOTE PEOPLE WHO ARENT ACTIVE ON FORUMS. Also make sure that during the recruitment process your people emphasize the website and its importance just as much as their Kill/Death ratio.
YES there is a better way to do it, we just ARE NOT DOING IT. With the advent of cell phones, PDA's, IPhones, laptops, personal computers, pocket computers, office computers, Internet cafes, library's...there is not any reason people do not have access to the web. You tell the average person about something cool or funny on the net, they find a way to see it. If you tell someone about a dating site or half naked bodies site...they find a way to see it. If people want to be promoted, they will FIND A WAY TO BE ONLINE. Then we can use our forums, visitor messaging and private message system to communicate and rely less on the SPAM.
BTW, before I became a Lieutenant, I had a total of 1 post. I was told that the forums were critical if I wanted to grow within the community. I hated online forums and I stressed that I wanted to game, NOT POST. But by accepting that promotion, I had no choice but to DO MY JOB. I believe if we recruited correctly, trained correctly and promoted correctly, SPAMMING wouldnt be an issue.
People need to do their job correctly, be held accountable or step down.
**** OR GET OF THE POT as my grandfather would say.
A final thought on the subject is this, XBOXLIVE messages last a max of 30 days. In addition, you can only hold so many messages before they delete themselves. I get a SPAM, I immediately post it in my FORUMS (
For Your Information thread), I then make an addendum to my meeting notes for my Captains (we meet formally 2x's a week), I verify if it is a repeated post, and then I spam it out to who needs to see it. The point is this. Not every SPAM is worthy of the title, some people put SPAM on things "just cause".
True spams typically circulate in abundance. I hold my Captains responsible for reading the threads as much as playing with squads.
COMMUNICATION is KEY but effective TRAINING is TANTAMOUNT to COMMUNICATION.