Xrumer

[Biker]

You can't call it spam just because its mass posted if the content is legitimate and valuable.

I most certainly can, and will. Just because YOU think it's legitimate doesn't excuse the fact that you're most likely violating every single "spam" rule for every forum out there.

It doesn't matter that it's targeted. It doesn't matter that the subject matter is not "advertising". You're taking an automated process and shotgunning multiple copies of that information to multiple sites. That, is spam.

 

[Sador]

Will we see an end to XRumer once the law catches up with automated forum spam?

Yes, because crime came to a total stop once laws were invented against it. So did the selling of tools to assist in committing crimes.

 

[tenants]

Yes, because crime came to a total stop once laws were invented against it. So did the selling of tools to assist in committing crimes.

There was no crime until "laws were invented"

 

[Fred Sherman]

I most certainly can, and will. Just because YOU think it's legitimate doesn't excuse the fact that you're most likely violating every single "spam" rule for every forum out there.

It doesn't matter that it's targeted. It doesn't matter that the subject matter is not "advertising". You're taking an automated process and shotgunning multiple copies of that information to multiple sites. That, is spam.

Like what?

Have an account? I have one on every one of them and I would be posting as myself.
Meaningful content? Done. Content created by me, my own IP. Yep. So, what rule?

Automation is not by its nature, spam. I am merely automating a process I would do manually anyway. Your argument is void of any valid reasoning.

 

[tenants]

Automation is not by its nature, spam. I am merely automating a process I would do manually anyway. Your argument is void of any valid reasoning.

I happen to agree that certainly not all automation is spam. I've worked in corporate automation for many years, and none of it was spam related (until a year or so ago.. and it was anti spam).

Many sites do include in part of their TOS that no automation program should be used to access/create/download content on their site.
By breaking the TOS, they have broken a contract.
I think that this should be mentioned in all forums TOS, just to be clear that by using unauthorised automation tools on the forum, they are breaking the TOS contract and then (civil) law.

An argument that they are not breaking the law, and the tool is not a spam tool (since they are not using it to email) is then much weaker, since they are breaking the TOS
This certainly wont stop the individual, but by XRumer developers targeting XenForo forums and possibly even mentioning XF on their site, they are then breaking the law (which may/may not bother the owners of XRumer in the slightest).

 

[Fred Sherman]

So, like anything else, a tool can have legitimate uses and can be abused. You can't vilify driving nails just because the same motion of a hammer against a skull kills.

 

[Taxi]

I think the difference, Fred, is that forums are typically setup to foster discussion about the topics that are important that that community. If you're using automation to send the same message, even an on-topic message, are you then going to contribute to the resulting discussions may have started with your automated posts?

On my forum, that wouldn't be enough. In fact, on an old forum I used to run, we had a guy who did just that: he posted news stories about items related to our topic (home theater), or asked simple "What do you think about X" type of questions, but rarely, if ever, replied to any of these threads that he created. We eventually discovered (by his own admission) he was working for a marketing company, and was trying to use our forum for market research. (We banned him.)

IMHO, if you were to use XRumer in the way that you described, you're really only benefiting yourself, getting YOUR content into their forums, but you're not really serving their community.