Thank you to those of you who have reported some of the abusive threads over the past few weeks. We've removed the offending posts and threads as quickly as possible and today we've instituted a new rule based on data we've found.

Almost all of the violating threads were created by users who had never made a non-$0 purchase; therefore we've updated the forum logic to prevent posting until a user has made a real purchase. I don't think this will affect any of you who use our forums regularly.

While it will not stop bad threads or replies completely I think this will put a large damper on the behavior. As always we will respond to your abuse reports as quickly as possible so that we can maintain the fun, positive and enjoyable atmosphere that the forums provide.

Sincerely,

Brad Quote

good move Brad

Regards
Bally Quote

Thx Brad Quote

Good news, Brad Quote

awww lol as usual, the only dissenting view.. for a period of time after i nuked my previous account i was a grey, actually an interesting experience, as, at that time grey's could actually open threads, comment on them etc. i suppose it was a hole in the ever more restrictive fence line around adult chat sites, a weak point to some i guess. but it was interesting, i'd suggest it as a delightful experience to some of those who comment regularly, and particularly to one or two who have commented in this thread. [firm admirer of brad's collection of statistical stuff, really i am] but my point would be, i began what i think is an enjoyable thread here during that time, and commented on several, lol @ the eyeroll that will elicit from everyone, i don't know that what 'I' would consider abusive or hmmm troubling comments and threads have been created or comments made by 'non-contributing' chatters..i know that most all of the threads i've reported as abusive, or comments i've turned in as abusive have been created or made by some of the most widely known chatters on the site. like me though to 'pick on' widely known chatters.. RIGHT? ah well..

i'm sorry brad that a lot of what is being dumped on the lap of your programming staff is, to me, so mundane and unimportant when compared with the complaints about throughput, room crashes, show stoppages, and hd lag. i wish somehow that i could convince people that complaining about the size of doorknobs on the site just wastes a lot of important time, as you pointed out to me once i believe, when i made a request for a change that i *hint hint nudge nudge* @ ronnie.. had been willing to fund from my own pocket.

*leans over brad's shoulder to see which rotten.com post he's reading this morning* so.. (kisses.all)
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Thanks, Brad Quote

Thank you Quote

Thank you

The number of inappropriate threads and posts seems to have diminished already Quote

If it helps to keep out the "riff-raff"... Quote

just a little followup to my previous commentary *crowd says "Wot'd she say?" Ophelia says "RANT!"*

to clarify again.. MOST of the THREADS that i've seen and taken offense to... have BEGUN in the VIP forum.. and as far as i can remember.. when i was a grey, and a white not registered.. for that brief period becoming No.op.Roo.. no grey/nonregisteredwhites couldn't even LOOK at the horrible crap going on in THAT bit of internet.realestate..

so girls.. let me just say this *piano intro and drum roll* one.. more.. time.. you babies wouldn't have lasted 10 minutes in the chat of 12 or 13 years ago.. the admins then would have gang kicked you from one room to another.. god KNOWS they did me for a while till my mopping and cleaning and occassionaly impaling (to 'e' or not to 'e' on impale) beggers on my mop stick entertained them... being silly and loud and toopid is a right of passage on any bbs/blog/thread.based place.. and omg.. letting the unwashed in? foulk.. Sara's room would be an absolute Walton's kiss-fest (BLARG) if it wasn't for the grey bashing that goes on.. can you IMAGINE? pffttttt..

Again, Brad.. my apologies for droning on and on about this.. i KNOW that a civilized pacified hearts and minds sorta place is just grease for the gears of the biz.. but seriously.. don't you MISS those days? i know underneath it all.. any one with a (BAN.BUTTON) does.. *kisses to the midnight to 7am EST CS shift*

so.. let's all gather together.. do some high fives. and pretend we're drunken cowfolk in the midst of a bar room rampage with James Garner making jokes and leering at Joan Hackett.. god i miss her, delicious brunette, (YUM.BUTTON) and please remember pedantic observations are just another form of low comedy.. useful. but not as much fun as *setting fire to some droll noodges hair* and YES i KNOW that sara's room is proof that some places are still like that.. but this is about the forums.. where silly statements (some of them mine) last forever so everyone can see how nutzo you were at one point.. and with that.. i think my point is made

*kisses and runs*
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I find it amusing - and disturbing - that the primary posters of the abusive posts are the people who replied to this thread about abusive posts!

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do have one suggestion. If a post is less than some small number of characters... maybe 20, then the post should be automatically sent to the recycle bin. A post that short is certainly spam. Also, if someone types the same pattern of words or punctuation several times, that is another way to filter out a pile of spam.

It is quite apparent that the most prolific posters in the forum are often the biggest abusers who can't resist the temptation to add their 2 cents of spam to each and every thread in all the forums.

Some of the abusive posters just don't know when to zip it, and others, especially one, is beyond the point of any hope of redemption.

I might also add that the abusers tend to use aliases when they go into model's chat rooms because I certainly never see them in chat under their forum names.

Perhaps members should only have one alias on their account. That would solve lots of problems. That goes for VIPs also, because there is at least one VIP who is intentionally creating discord in several models rooms every day. I am working with one of the customer support people to eliminate the problem, but it is like playing a game of "Whack-a-mole" as soon as one yoyo is dealt with, two more pop up in it's place.

Some rooms have a policy where members are discouraged or even forbidden from chatting with each other. They are to chat with the model and not mention other chatters nor other models in the chat. Models should not have to put up with a room full of banter that is not related to their own show. Many models deal with this situation by intentionally going off line for no other reason than to empty the room of all the disruptive and demanding jerks. Also, tipping does not give a user the right to abuse a model. I have an example of this, I used to work for a very wealthy man who would constantly go to various restaurants for lunch and abuse the waitresses very badly.. but since he tipped them big afterwards, they would tolerate him. However, in almost every case, they eventually decided his big tips were not worth the abuse and asked him not to come back. Quote

Personally I find your suggestion of a 20 character minimum limit as being unworkable, if you look through a lot of the threads started by chatters that are praising models quite often the object of the praise will use a single emoticon (usually the smile) to show grattitude.

Are you gonna class them as spammers?

And what about some of the threads in the gaming forums? 1 of which if ya look virtually every post is only 4 letters.

And a lot of the supposd spam comments where there is a block of 5 or more by the same person at the exact same time were caused by a glitch in one of the older versions ofthe sites code that would auto-repeat post. Quote

Personally I find your suggestion of a 20 character minimum limit as being unworkable, if you look through a lot of the threads started by chatters that are praising models quite often the object of the praise will use a single emoticon (usually the smile) to show grattitude.



I agree, Suggs.

You will also remember the vote I organised where people were invited to respond with a single YES or NO.

(I have just realised that if I hadn't added the second line, this post would have been less than 20 characters ) Quote

I agree, Suggs.

You will also remember the vote I organised where people were invited to respond with a single YES or NO.

(I have just realised that if I hadn't added the second line, this post would have been less than 20 characters )




...I agree as well. Quote

...I agree as well.



I Also agree with you guys.

Regards
Bally Quote

Personally I find your suggestion of a 20 character minimum limit as being unworkable, if you look through a lot of the threads started by chatters that are praising models quite often the object of the praise will use a single emoticon (usually the smile) to show grattitude.

Are you gonna class them as spammers?

And what about some of the threads in the gaming forums? 1 of which if ya look virtually every post is only 4 letters.

And a lot of the supposd spam comments where there is a block of 5 or more by the same person at the exact same time were caused by a glitch in one of the older versions ofthe sites code that would auto-repeat post.



Good points Suggs. I consider the gaming forum to be a place where anybody can say anything as a way to vent and not clutter up the other forums with trash. So I would exempt that forum. I would also exempt any MODEL's comments from being spam, but users who are just inserting themselves into every thread should be deleted. Also, I don't think your Monty Python link would have been removed if the admin knew that it was a sketch and not an advertisement. Quote

*never agrees with anyone on principal* i think all this stuff about limiting/filtering/restricting/codifying rules is simply crap.. and that most of the wanna-bes who are throwing 250 to 500 character posts in here are the same ranters in the VIP forum that begin the same awful threads that result in entire threads being locked and deleted.. and YOU know WHO you ARE.. bah.. this is all must more or the same.. here's a MAJOR idea and in less that 500 words...


TAKE THIS TIME YOU ARE WASTING HERE AND FIND A MODEL YOU LIKE AND BUY A F'ING SHOW!!! Quote

...I agree as well.



20 characters was just an arbitrary figure that I gave. But, if you notice, even "...I agree as well. : ) is both over 20 characters AND a complete sentence! So that would pass the filter I proposed. A very effective filter would be to simply filter out the ONE worst offender and abuser in the forums. And no, I will not mention her name. It is well established wisdom in cyberspace that the best way to get rid of a troll is to ignore them. Quote

20 characters was just an arbitrary figure that I gave. But, if you notice, even "...I agree as well. : ) is both over 20 characters AND a complete sentence! So that would pass the filter I proposed. A very effective filter would be to simply filter out the ONE worst offender and abuser in the forums. And no, I will not mention her name. It is well established wisdom in cyberspace that the best way to get rid of a troll is to ignore them.



LOL good luck with that skippy.. it's been blah blah'd about before. *so loves your sophistry*

*LOVES Skippy's telepathic abilities.. knowing what everyone thinks about such and such... and LOL @ CS having anything from ME to worry about.. you poor demented sod hopper* i LOVE all of the 'invented' things here that you, the master of all of flirtdom come up with... it's just so amusing.. you really show yourself FULLY in the dark.. *sigh* Quote

Thank you to those of you who have reported some of the abusive threads over the past few weeks. We've removed the offending posts and threads as quickly as possible and today we've instituted a new rule based on data we've found.

Almost all of the violating threads were created by users who had never made a non-$0 purchase; therefore we've updated the forum logic to prevent posting until a user has made a real purchase. I don't think this will affect any of you who use our forums regularly.

While it will not stop bad threads or replies completely I think this will put a large damper on the behavior. As always we will respond to your abuse reports as quickly as possible so that we can maintain the fun, positive and enjoyable atmosphere that the forums provide.

Sincerely,

Brad


Brad.. you need look no further than this thread and one other in this forum to see that the (TICKET.AT.DOOR) logic is irrelevant and achieves nothing. As i've noted in another post in this thread, and in several others, the abuse springs from those who need do nothing more than buy 30 dollars worth of credits, and largely from those paying a monthly fee for free access to much of the site's property.

I don't have much of any solution for it. *shrug* You know how i am.. fast fast fast off the start line. Hmmmm. But i do have this much to say, when VIPs invent lies wholesale about me, *sigh*, or ANY other person who frequents the site; and invents relationships with Customer Support staff that to my knowledge are entirely ficticious (pardon my spelling errors), who makes repeated negative remarks about models on the site, who creates multiple forum identities solely to promulgate disorder and upset; then i think VS has some obvious options to remedey (sp again i'm afraid) that particular situation.

*shrug* He's even invented conversations with CS claiming they've told him of other sites to visit. I've spoken MANY times with members of the staff here, and i find it nothing short of unimaginable that any VS employee would do so, even as a method of trying to get this trouble maker off of the site. Many of my posts in responce to this customer have been removed.. that does not trouble me, i'm an angry person by nature, and very very direct and honest about the irritants i encounter. But apparently others on the site, including forum monitors, find no issue with the behaviors i've noted above. That, of course, is up to you and your staff. Priorites are made and set; we both understand that.

But let me point out, as satisfying as it may be, to watch this continue, for both VS staff, and forum readers; when Piers turns his attentions on trashing models, as he's already done multiple times in the forum; or trashing the site itself, as he's also done repeatedly, or trashing customers who carry the bandwidth burden of the site to the extents that customers such as I, ccrslaw, its-pp, and several others do.. one has to question exactly what those Priorites are.

I will note this also in closing this post. There is ONE forum above all others where this repeated abusive behaviour starts, is fostered, and then spreads to the remainder of the forums. And that is the VIP forum. I can understand the attraction of having a forum dedicated to those who pay a monthly fee to the business; however, the posting rate there is far lower than the other forums, the threads are largely, hmmmm, irrelivant is too kind a term but *shrug* it works and is not valueladen. So, if I suppose, if anything, i would advocate the elimination of the VIP forum. Let the people who create and foment issues such as "ban the model" and "punish them for not doing what i want" and "simulating sexual satisfaction should be fined" and the other abhorant threads that start there and are allowed to fester, let them do it all out where EVERYONE can see it.

Some of it is already happening of course, as witnessed in the past week or so right here in the threads that you yourself began; i'm happy to see that, the REAL troublemakers become so much more a general irritant this way; and their patterns more clearly observable.

*Catheine Denuve Shrug*

Sorry to take so much time Brad, but you know me.. wtf eh?
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