Published on 12, July, 2020
There were a number of posts yesterday which were 'hijacked ' by someone purporting to be doing research.
This research may or may not have been genuine.The links may or may not have been genuine links.I domt know.
What I do know is that they are an abuse of the forum, they are extremely annoying and that the person putting these surveys on would be aware that it is not allowed. The number of times it was posted makes me wonder of indeed it was genuine research, i wouldnt follow the link anyway.
Rather than humour people who do this by us posting a reply saying that it is against forum rules, perhaps we should just report as abuse and leave it at that.Hopefully the moderators would then delete the offending post and block the perpetrators.
Posting a research survey once may be a genuine mistake, multiple times looks like there is some malicious intent.
I am not a fan of surveys, so I keep my answer short, here... I think that all such Posters should open their own Thread. Then if they want, post links to that Thread in related Threads, relevant to the Host Thread. Note that I said that they Post links back to their own Thread, rather than directly to whatever they are promoting.
If their starting Thread is blocked, or ignored by its own starter, then that might give a good indication of maliciousness. Automation would post no replies or would ignore their own starting Thread, often... they are just eager to post a link leaving this Site.
...I am slightly braced towards having this idea greatly perforated, now that I have aired it, though... Please take it easy at me...?