I read the original thread. Are you talking about the posts where Goldsausage said about being ill? Although that's obviously not on topic, and I agree that he probably should realise that that's the sort of stuff which is annoying people, I don't think two or three posts constitutes a "spam fest".

Erm - perhaps, but that's not how mass-deleting works ;)

Walrus - It wasn't only this thread and it wasn't only yesterday. These users had been warned about what would happen if they didn't keep it quiet and on-topic and stop spamming. They ignored the warnings so mass-deletion started. It's not necessarily that this particular thread was THE spam fest.

Honestly, ask most users here and you see they are not complaining about the mass-deletion, even if it leaves beheaded posts around like this one.

How can you be sure that most users are happy with it? It only started a couple of days ago, that's hardly enough time to gauge a proper reaction. And it's also not, IMO, enough time to see if the spammers can change their ways.

The idea of mass deletion is stupid in my opinion. Threads like this, with all of the important posts removed, are a hundred times worse than threads that drift into some personal conversation

I believe the real solutions to this problem should be one of these:

a) Encourage users who are annoyed to put the users who annoy them on their ignore list
b) Create more moderators, enough so that the spam can be properly sifted through
c) Use the system of official warnings and infractions instead of mass deletion. And don't be so heavy handed as to abolish ALL personal conversation ... that would hinder the community spirit of this board, not help it

All of those are infinitely preferable to what's going on at the moment

We did sift initially! But as they didn't care or kept on reporting whatever it was they'd written we just took the mass-deletion step. And let me tell you it's NOT been a couple of days.

I elect The Walrus to be a mod on this board! He knows how to handle us reckless souls.

On that note, you're not exactly helping yourself. You've been acting like a bit of a dick every time you've been called out about this, is it really that difficult just to say "sorry, I know it's annoying, I'll try to stop doing it", and actually follow through on that, rather than making some kind of smart arse remark?

I tried. I failed.

How difficult can it be not to take up page after page of a valid thread with random chat?

Hard when the conversation is an enjoyable (for I and the other participating person).

They're not even that bad now, the threads just get spammed cos of arguments now not cos of open conversations.