I've been invited to join another bike forum

[owlice]

Got a PM today inviting me to another forum, from someone who's never posted on this site.

Doesn't seem quite kosher to me. Your thoughts?

[KnottedYet]

Got a PM today inviting me to another forum, from someone who's never posted on this site.

Doesn't seem quite kosher to me. Your thoughts?

It's a piece of business we've all gotten, some of us several times. Do with it what you will. It doesn't seem malicious.

[Grog]

I've never been invited.

Does this mean I stink?

(I do happen to be quite sweaty right now, but not always!)

[Trek420]

I haven't been invited :( now there go my feelings of rejection ;)

There are other cycling forums? :confused: :p

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

Personally, I'd consider this to be a form of spam.
Using the TE private messaging system to solicit membership on another website? Doesn't matter if it's a bike forum, bike gear company, poetry review website, or any other kind of website.
People should not be using the PM system here to mass promote anything.

[Shara]

Personally, I'd consider this to be a form of spam.
Using the TE private messaging system to solicit membership on another website? Doesn't matter if it's a bike forum, bike gear company, poetry review website, or any other kind of website.
People should not be using the PM system here to mass promote anything.

Yes this. It's spam and I reported it to a mod. Especially considering the user didn't have any posts and wasn't invested in the community. It happens on all forums.

[drdwin]

Today was the 3rd time I've gotten the invite - I just ignore it.

[shootingstar]

Personally, I'd consider this to be a form of spam.
Using the TE private messaging system to solicit membership on another website? Doesn't matter if it's a bike forum, bike gear company, poetry review website, or any other kind of website.
People should not be using the PM system here to mass promote anything.

Would agree. A more conscientious entrepreneur or non-profit group, would ask individuals for their permission to be on future mailing lists for PM notices.

Even when it's powerfully tempting, especially when it is easy to get people's PM address these days directly from public forums, websites, better not to create mass-mailings which 'cause unnecessary irritation and bad public relations.

While I love fashion, I have no interest in receiving unsolicited emails about fashion. Same for anything on cycling.

With Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, listservs, etc. on top of regular email, there's a great deal now competing for one's attention.

[Susan Otcenas]

Sorry about the spam PMs, ladies. I've asked Jeff to look into blocking the use of PMs if a registered user has never posted publicly to the forums.

Susan

[Atlas]

I was all excited to get a message and then spam. Its like getting lots of mail and its all bills.

[sundial]

Susan, is there a way to make newbies wait until they've posted 15 times before being able to send a pm to someone? Just thinking....

[shootingstar]

Susan, is there a way to make newbies wait until they've posted 15 times before being able to send a pm to someone? Just thinking....

Good suggestion. It takes time for newbie to understand this group and best to participate, post public comments/topics for all of us to respond.

Would tend to defer to Susan and her team to determine the appropriate benchmark posting frequency since they faithfully deal with and remove inappropriate stuff for us to keep this garden/forest weed-free. :o We probably don't even realize the pile size of weeds they dig out.

[krisl6]

I just got the same message. I work in Online Marketing and know that this Spam is just a way for a site to try to improve its link popularity and thus its position in search engines like Google. Users like this should definitely be banned in my opinion (which it seems is going to happen). This type of black hat Search Engine Optimization is very much frowned upon by legit SEO businesses. Just thought I'd add in my 2 cents!