They still couldn't post links even if the threads flooded the forum. I was there.
And I was there when the really big spam wave hit a few years back. Then it was 20+ pages, not threads, of spam, hitting not only General, but also the game forums. In fact, back then I wrote the scripts to mass downvote and report threads. And I those have - I have to regret to say - later been used to target real users.

Who said anything about "pushing people to use it"?

It can also encourage efficiency.

It still is somewhat bothersome if the threads clog the forum first page for however long, until gog clears them out that is(or users do via the report spam button)....even if they cannot post links.

Damn, that sounds like it was hell......

Some people's inventions are often used for reasons one doesn't intend & all too often, sadly.

Yeah well. The old dilemma: Let people fortify their filter bubbles (ignore function, jerkmuter) or risk open conflict. I'm all for the latter, but I can understand a storefront not sharing this position ;-)

I just hide each post by low rating, and it works for most bad posts....also some people sometimes make good posts so I don't usually feel the need or want to ignore most people completely.

Fair enough, but many likely would be ok with using such or be cautious yet still be ok with using such once verified....so that reason doesn't seem to fit most people, though I can see how it would fit some.

Fair enough, but with a little work some could easily search up for such tools or ask others for such via a question thread....one just has to make the effort to learn of such, in many cases.

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I never said you or anyone said that, I was just saying in general/musing on it/etc.

Well it was. But also fun. Back then the community was still intact:
We are under attack thread:
"Help, there are 15 pages of spam in the BG forum!!"
"New 10 pages in General!"
10 people replying (day and night)
"I'm on it!"

The thread should still be around, buried somewhere in the history of the forums...

Efficiency/things that breeds/breed too much weakness to me is a bad thing...one gets a bit of a good thing by creating a bad thing(in this case the higher likelihood of walling one's self off from most others at any minor slight)

So it had some good effect(it rallied the users together to fight a common "foe")? That is nice to hear, at least.....and as with other things it helps build a site's "Lore" a bit, for good or ill.

If I want to have a nice conversation with nice people in "Ponyland World" without vulgar language (which is an exaggeration of what I meant) then your method doesnt work - I will still be constantly confronted with the undesired vulgar language. If however I can permanently make offenders go away (and it works on quoted text too) then I get my desired nice relaxing environment.
Or rephrasing: This is a lot about what you want from being in the forum. If you want to confront the world then you may be opposed to ignore functions and such. However if you want to escape the bad world and dont want "malcontents" to mess up your experience then ignore functions (or some such) are necessary.

My point here is that giving options lets people have what they want, whether its this or that.
See my other response about why-people-are-in-the-forum-and-what-they-want.

Are YOU ready to take the fight to the Baba-Ji scourge?! Then join today! Remember, service guarantees citizenship!

YMMD :D

It still works for a good number of cases, though.

True, I was mainly just spitballing/musing in general on how such tools weaken people to varying degrees(but are also useful for some others).

Giving people options, to me, seems fine.

=======================

I'm from the gog forums and I say ban em** all!

(**=spammers)

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Would you like to know more?

Thanks for the laughs.

Maybe I am missing something here but I think I saw you post something similar a few times. What is the big deal about whether or not they can post links? To me it seems the flooding is the main problem, not whether or not any of it is clickable. Now if the argument is that there would be even more spam topics if the spammer could post links, I can understand. Also, obviously it would not be a good look for GOG if an honest user goes on the forum and inadvertently clicks a spammed link that leads to some type of psuedo-malware (hence my desire to reduce the size of the Galaxy logo at the bottom of the page, hey oh!). But kidding aside is it really any better of a look if an honest user goes and uses the Whatsapp number given by a spammer?

I just made it (the Galaxy button at the bottom) go away with Ublock "Block Element..." function.

Edit: This also works (very easily once the function is understood) on the https://www.gog.com/account page: No more Galaxy download buttons before the offline installers!