Most of us wish they would do a search before asking, but sadly many don't,
what irritates me even more is when they flat out lie, saying things like :
In this thread:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 57#p664832
by johans »
I tried it, and when I ran into errors I looked everywhere on the web with the errors I get.
Liars make my blood pressure go up, and especially when it is such a blatant
obvious lie.
It is one thing when some one says something that is not true, but they think it is, because they are misinformed, that is different.
If you look at the thread though, you will notice in the first post, they do not even include the error messages, but ok, I suppose some poor handicaped
persons might not think of something like that,... But then replies, when asked,
by debiman » what errors? you need to show us.
Very clearly stated, "You need to show us", even someone with severe handicaps should be able to understand that , but NOoooo, this person fails to
understand, and follows up with a reply, that includes a link to a totally useless blog, one that does not even show up in search results, if one does a real search on this kind of problem, (php, myphpadmin, mysql, etc).
And then the person quickly comes up with excuses for not being able to post the error messages,
I tried it, and when I ran into errors I looked everywhere on the web with the errors I get.
I can sadly not show you the exact errors now as the server is at work and I will only be there again on Monday.
Telling us they looked every where is a flat out lie, ................
Give me a break, if this person had really pasted the error messages into a search engine, they would have gotten better results then the useless blog they are trying to promote, I know this for a fact, because when I first started installing php, phpmydamin, etc on my servers, I did have my share of problems, and all ways found good results, when I used the error messages as my key words.
Any way, yes this kind of thing irritates me to no end, it is obviously spam to me, but the OP will cry, lie and whine, claiming they needed to post a link to a useless blog , that does not show in any searches, (yet, but now that they have posted the link here it will probably start showing up), and that makes me even madder, because some ---no polite words come to my mind--- promotes a useless blog, and it pollutes the search engines, adding more spam to them, that has to be weeded through when doing a search, this kind of thing makes it harder to get good search results.
I thought about reporting the post, and asking admins or a mod to remove the links to the use less blog, .... but then I felt discouraged, and decided "Why bother ? ",...
Any way, yea I wish people would try to do some searches first, or at least just be honest, and tell us the truth "Hello, I only have a few minuets on my break, and don't have time,...",... Or I don't know how to search good, ...
There is a lot of this :
by bw123 »On the other hand, there are also people who only post here to get their links posted to their blog or debian derivative ---snip---
And if they really had a genuine problem, with real error messages, and had done a search, they would not need to ask the question, nor have a excuse to post a link to their use less blog,...
Quite often a moderator does remove the links, but some times that opens up a new can of worms,...
Really all we can do is try to politely encourage people to search first, and when members see posts that maybe are questionable, report them, explain why in the notes field on the report,...
We, spam hunters, as well as admins and mods do read all of the reports, when it is cleverly disguised spam , or not so obvious spam, then us spamhunters need to wait and see what a admin or mod say as well, any way, that is all for now from me.
===== edit ============
by bw123 »Sometimes, they travel in pairs, or in groups. You will notice people often post to the same threads that appear out of nowhere. Is it one person with several accounts? is it some random coincidence? Yeah, who knows, who cares, I can spot a fake a mile away.
Actually, all of the above, sometimes it is 1 person, with several accounts, other times random coincidence,..other times AI (artificial intelligence) bots,...1 person can create several, each one registers as a individual, there are a lot of people experimenting with these kind of bots, and when no body (human) seems to notice, or notices, well, that is what the
"turing test" is, and the ones humans don't spot pass.
We had a couple not to long ago, that failed miserably, ... but I suppose that would be another topic.
A problem, but minor, these AI bots, and it is a fascinating subject, field to me,
they can be programmed to play on human emotions,.. for example everyone , or most people with even just a little compassion,... well quite often a bot , can be confused with a human that is some what handicapped mentally, and when cornered, the bot will try to take advantage of that,...there are ways though to
trap and determine if it is a bot or not, but again that is a whole other topic.
Sorry,...