RE: Peter Schiff vs Erik Voorhees
I don't know, maybe we just have different ideas about what spam is.
Apparently.
I guess things like "nice post . resteemit done" wouldn't be spam either to you, since you could just imagine that they really meant it and then start hassling someone who regarded it as spam.
However you want to define spam, I'm really confident that he didn't read my post and sincerely want to express that. (Most likely it was a canned response to it being tagged 'bitcoin'.)
It's hard to perfectly know what their intentions are, sure. But that's why it's okay to yield to others and not act like they did something wrong if they have a different impression than you.
If you don't think there's at least a pretty reasonable chance that that isn't a sincere user making a sincere interaction, then I think you're making a pretty bad read of the situation.
I simply went over to his comment section and noticed that they do not appear to be spam. Here is a real example of spam. Here is another real example of spam. Here is a real example of spam using text instead of images.
When you spam a button on a video game controller it means you are doing the same thing repeatedly in rapid and regular succession. All of blackberry71's image postings and text postings appear to be unique and also on the topic of the post he was replying too.
I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but I think you may want to consider that your definition of spam may be incorrect. Maybe you think that spam is annoying, most people do think that. Yet, maybe you also found his .gif(t) annoying so you mistakenly thought it was spam.
I'll give you an example, pickpocketers are annoying because they steal your wallet. Yet that doesn't mean that all annoying people are pickpocketers. See what I mean? Anyway, it's your account run it how you see fit, I was just critiquing the flag. We can certainly agree to disagree if you like and leave it at that.
for what it's worth tho I typed "spam definition" into the google and I get this:
doesn't seem like it's predicated on repeated action
::shrugs::
Right, so using the above definition: had he sent you a .gif of a unicorn instead of a bitcoin, that might be considered irrelevant or inappropriate because it has nothing to do with the content of the post. If he also sent the same image to a large number of other recipients (that would be the repeated action). Had he done those two things, that would definitely qualify his comment as spam.
You're changing the goal posts. Above you were saying the definition of spam is based on it being repeated action. Now you're trying to pivot back to whether his post was relevant and on topic.
I don't really regard a random Bitcoin gif as relevant to my post, but we can agree to disagree on that part, and have already beat that horse. What I'm saying here is that, no, it doesn't seem like the definition of spam has to be based on repetition as you claimed it did.
Kind of feel like you're wasting my time now. mute
The definition you chose was two-fold.
The part in bold and the part in italics.
The large number of recipients is the repetition. It means the same message goes out repeatedly, just to different users, people, or addresses.
It is part of what qualifies spam as spam. It is how spam filters are able to catch spam, by scanning mail for similarity.
Yeah, I don't have time for this any longer either. It's a simple word, with a simple definition that is not at all hard to comprehend.
Like I said, however you define "spam", I don't believe it was a sincere comment sincerely interacting with my post. People generally refer to those comments as "spam" here. If that's not the correct use of the word, so be it.
So it's two different things: (1) whether it was a sincere comment etc, and (2) whether I'm using "spam" correctly. I don't really care about the latter (tho I do think I'm using it the way people generally use it here, whether or not that's the textbook definition).
Ya, this has plenty run its course for me lol. And like I said I'm happy to remove the flag if he seems like a sincere user over time.