What would be considered spamming in the "My Fiverr Gigs" section?

[zazadesign]

I noticed that many people keep posting the same gig over and over again and the ones that are posted rarely or just once, of course get left way behind, What would be considered spamming this section, with your gigs and how many times would be enough and fair to the other sellers promoting their gigs?



Would you say it is best to add a new discussion about your gigs or would simply adding a comment to the one you already submitted be enough?

[fonthaunt]

Hi @zazadesign! This is a great question! I’ve written a long post in reply, but I may edit some when I have time to come back and re-read it.

All of the moderators (sheriffs) tend to be somewhat lenient in MFG (My Fiverr Gigs) since we have tightened up in all other categories. Mods are given guidelines from Fiverr staff to help us decide how to handle all spam, but it wouldn’t be easy to make absolute rules. With multiple moderators and hundreds of posts, it would take too much time to track and enforce. Instead, each mod makes a judgement call about what is enough.

Which action is taken depends on the severity of the problem. Examples from minimum to maximum could be:
-A sheriff note posted suggesting that the user should stop for a while to give others chances.
-Deleting bump comments to force the post downward temporarily.
-A administrative measure applied to a post so that it cannot rise upward even if bumped.
-Removal of all or most of a user’s posts but leaving their posting privilege intact so they can re-post.

• A message sent to the user letting them know their posts have become excessive.
  -At maximum severity a user can be banned from forum posts for a few days or altogether although this step is unlikely unless the spammer is in multiple categories or if the spam sends users to other websites.

Given that, I’ll give you my answers to your questions based on what I do. Other sheriffs may or may not jump in to offer their ideas and opinions.

zazadesign said: What would be considered spamming this section, [My Fiverr Gigs] with your gigs and how many times would be enough and fair to the other sellers

In My Fiverr Gigs I consider once a day reasonable and fair IF you can see for yourself that others are getting time in and IF you post about 3-5 of your gigs. If you have more than 5 gigs, I recommend rotating between them in batches of 3-5 without making multiples on the same gig. You don’t need 3 posts a day about the same gig or a blast of posts on 20 or more different gigs. You could also make one post highlighting more than 1 gig if it isn’t too long.

zazadesign said: Would you say it is best to add a new discussion about your gigs or would simply adding a comment to the one you already submitted

I personally have no issue with adding a comment once a day but I believe in limits. If a user does a single word comment (bump / up) for 3 days in a row I leave the post alone. I would rather see a post bumped with a real comment and I think potential buyers prefer that too. For example, instead of the word up, add a short note telling readers something new. Remind them that a holiday is coming and your gig could relate to it. Even better, offer a discount for those who mention your ad that day only or have a sale. Make the bump count!

I would add, though, if youve bumped your post 3 times, it’s probably time to let that post sink out of sight and write a whole new ad. When I see a post with 10 or more comments, especially one word comments, I find it annoying and spammy. It gets boring too, like seeing the same bad TV commercial. If it looks bad and might drive readers away from all the MFG ads, I am likely to remove all the bumps. If a user also has many posts I may even remove the entire ads to clean up the category.

So, those are my thoughts. What do you think? I’d love to see discussion on this and if any other mods have time, perhaps they’ll say what they might do differently. Also, since this is related to spam, here is a link to another of my own posts on this topic:

http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/73412/what-is-spam-when-it-comes-to-the-fiverr-forums

---

[zazadesign]

Reply to @fonthaunt: Wow! Great response, thank you so much fonthaunt! I can really say I understand better how the posting works. And thank you for the link too, I will read and re-read it until all is clear. I’m guessing that if I “listen” to what the moderators and the fiverr staff members say, all will be well in the end.

Quality over Quantity good people!

[emmaki]

I’ve always considered the My Fiverr Gigs to be some sort of gig spam dungeon. However, as a seller, I’m not really looking for potential gigs. If I were a buyer and if I were looking at the forum to spot potential sellers (to get a feel for their personality/discover a “person” rather than a gig page), I think I would quickly work out that the My Fiverr Gigs was also some sort of gig spam dungeon–not helped, of course, by repeated posts of the same gig and “ups”.

In my opinion–and it really is just that–I think it’s little more than a waste of time and should probably be removed, or at least put far, far down the page as the last category. It doesn’t seem to offer any particular value either to sellers or buyers at the moment. Perhaps (extra) moderation would change that, but you guys have enough on your plates already! My 2p.

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @emmaki: I can guarantee you as a moderator that I entirely understand where you are coming from! I had to learn to make a real effort to read at least the top few posts there to look for things that people seriously needed help with or had a decent ad for.

The really hard part is this: Sellers receive advice all the time to use forum posts to build SEO and to drive traffic their way. In addition, they may read things like the Levels page that encourage them to participate in community leadership and the forum seems like an ideal spot for that, but they don’t always understand how to do it. (The levels page isn’t that clear on it either, so I’m not sure anyone understands the TRS part.)

Sellers want somewhere to advertise their gigs in early stages, to ask questions about reviewing their gigs, etc. “Review my Gig” posts are a real problem too because 2 out of 10 sellers really want actual assistance and the other 8 are posting as an excuse to get sympathy/sales. If you don’t give them a place to post their ads, gig links, profile links and so on, the whole forum can be overtaken like the Grey Gardens of spam.

Any ideas on solving this if we didn’t at least have some category for it? I think all the moderators are open to ideas! 🙂

[zazadesign]

Reply to @fonthaunt: I think that only if the entire fiverr community works together and flags the spammers something could change. But even that can have it’s up’s and down’s because then the fiverr team would receive too many flags to review. It is a vicious circle.
Perhaps only top rated sellers that have really respected the fiverr rules could flag a post as spam by including a detailed message with their opinion.

At the end of the day it’s all about respecting one another and facing the fact that everybody is here to work and make a better life for themselves. I think a lot of people forget that! We all have our problems, we all want to succeed and be the best in our fields so to whomever reads this: Respect others and their work!

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @zazadesign: Well, one thing I can say is that now that we have the external spam (hundreds of posts unrelated to Fiverr) under control, what we mainly deal with is internal spam. It really isn’t as hard to control as it may appear. One or two active moderators can catch most of the people who are advertising their gigs in the wrong forum categories.

The real issue is what to do with internal advertising. Users probably need to have somewhere on the forums to advertise their own gigs. It probably leads to very few sales, but if you don’t offer a category for it, new/confused/uncaring sellers are going to post somewhere. It either has to be moved by moderators or deleted by moderators, any way you look at it. Flags have little to do with that since the average sheriff can’t see flags, but manually goes “on patrol” in the forum. Flags ARE important when it comes to users who spam in large number since administrators do see flags and can enforce suspensions and bans.

I gave a detailed response to your first question because I think My Fiverr Gigs could be improved with other types of spam under more control. It might be possible to make that forum category more available to potential buyers. If it’s covered in one person’s ads or posts bumped 10 times, it becomes more and more useless.

[zazadesign]

Reply to @fonthaunt: I see, thank you for taking the time to explain!

[fonthaunt]

Reply to @zazadesign: I am seriously glad to help. We can all work together to avoid external and internal spam. I think that it is also good to keep a place for advertising for sellers that don’t understand yet how to do ads in better places like social media or their own sites. 🙂