velospace blog

velospace is a project/hobby of mine – it is not the main focus of my attention or energy. I set the site up to quietly run itself with minimal intervention. Things have worked out great the past two years: I haven’t had to spend an inordinate amount of time lording over the site to make sure it doesn’t get overrun by spammers, scammers, or jerks in general.

Social networking sites (SNS) are particularly vulnerable to spammers, scammers, and jerks because such sites must be open and easy to access by their very nature. In order to deal with this issue I’ve used several tools, one of which I am going to discuss today. One tool I’ve used to help steer clear of problems is a simple statement of rules on the about velospace page.

Why your SNS needs a simple site policy

Its inevitable that users of your SNS will butt heads and turn to you, the admin, for help resolving the problem. I’ve received many emails when spats between users boil over from comments-on-bikes to private-message-boxes to emails in my inbox. I realized that without some sort of overarching rules to reference when mediating disputes and keeping the site clean from spam, scams, and needless aggression would be close to impossible.

The velospace rules:

Rule 1. Don’t be a jerk.
Rule 2. Users only may contact one another for the sale or trade of bike-related items. No corporate sales. If you are a business and want participate on velospace you must contact Greg regarding advertising rates. velospace disclaims any and all liability and will not be liable in any way for the outcome of interactions between users.
Rule 3. No profanity in user names or the titles of sales, bikes or comments.
Rule 4. The only content you may upload to this site (including but not limited to images and text) is that which you either have a copyright in, permission from the copyright owner to upload, or work in the public domain.
Rule 5. You spam, you banned. Don’t bother trying!

Rule 1: The first rule I wrote is exceedingly simple. Four words, plain meaning, and its helped out a whole lot. This rule is absolutely necessary to maintain a level of decency between members. This is the anti-aggression rule.

Rule 2: The second rule is a bit more wordy, but is also simple and keeps spam and scams down. I don’t want velospace to be overrun by shills for products that may interest my users, but I want to give businesses a chance to reach out to users at the same time. I balanced these two interests by allowing businesses to participate in the site with my permission and only after having an advertising contract in place.

Rule 3: I try to keep profanity out of user names and titles of sales in the marketplace, bikes, and comments. I am not trying to censor users, I am trying to keep the site from reading like a bathroom wall for people who visit the site the first time and see what is posted on the front page. I have no problem with profanity in user profiles, comment bodies, bike descriptions, etcetera. But my reputation is reflected in the content of the site when I tell people that it is my project, and I expect a little bit of decency.

Rule 4: I wrote this rule after dealing with some content on the site that was uploaded by someone who obviously did not have a copyright to it. With the threat of litigation from copyright holders looming large these days (see RIAA/MPAA lawsuits galore), this rule makes it clear that velospace doesn’t condone copyright infringement on the site.

Rule 5: Another simple rule to deter spammers and scammers. I implemented the Drupal Troll module to deal out IP bans to repeat offenders, it works quite well.

In Sum

Each of these 5 rules covers a different type of bad behavior I’ve come across on velospace. By implementing these rules and holding users accountable to them I have been able to keep the site operating smoothly for over two years. If you have any questions about writing site policies that make sense please drop me a line!

- Greg