Classroom 2.0 and "Spamming"

The size of our network has made us a more popular target for spamming.

Whether from a commercial entity or not, the cutting and pasting of an identical message to more than one member or group represents a form of spamming. While there might be legitimate reasons to do this, it's usually an attempt to take advantage of the time and attention of other members. Spamming diminishes the value that members find in a community like ours, since it can mean that they have to weed through unwanted solicitations or information in order to participate in the good discussions available here.

As well, the posting of discussion topics or replies that do not relate to educational technology or the use of Web 2.0 in education are also a form of spamming. Whether or not they are important topics in their own right, they potentially detract from the value of the Classroom 2.0 to its members. It is a little harder to draw hard and fast lines here because we are a community, but if you are in doubt as to the appropriateness of posting a topic, please either email me or post it as a blog post instead of a forum discussion.

In a Ning network, to remove a member you have to "ban" them, which remove all of their content. Unfortunately, there is no way to temporarily "disable" a member pending resolution of a problem. For this reason, I will generally try to make contact with an individual before removing him or her from the community, but when clear violations are taking place I will immediately ban a member.

If you are the recipient of messages that were unsolicited or that you feel are spam, please alert my by sending me an email with the URL/link to the member who sent you the message.

Please feel free to comment below if you have any questions or idea. Thank you for being a part of Classroom 2.0!