SPAM in PM

[Zucca]

Got this message from zero poster "Ahmed Khouaja"

Hi Sir

I'm a new member in this blog , and i need help designing my lab power supply , i want some specifics details in my lab power supply

Caracteristics :

Adjustble voltage up to 30 Volts

Adjustble Current up to 5 Amperes

Inversion Polarity protection based on relays

Current injection while shorting exists ( i need to inject current in shorted laptop motherboard to define the deffected composants... )

I Thank You a lot for your help sir

I smell BS, what I should do? Delete and move on, or contact an admin?

[station240]

Reads like a homework question, compete this task to get your (not worth the paper it's printed on) EE degree.
Some of them cheat by buying a kit and submitting that, from shops setup for that specific purpose.

A normal person would just buy a cheap 0-30V 5A PSU off aliexpress or the like.
Yes report him.

[Ian.M]

Its not spam if it does't involve advertising, phishing, campaigning, chain letters or malware etc. 

That just looks like a clueless newbie who expects to be handed a fully custom power supply design for free and expects their hand held while they build it and (fail to) get it working.

The correct response is:

I charge $250 per hour for consultancy, minimum four hours, 50% in advance.  Unfortunately I am fully booked at the moment and don't expect to be taking on new jobs before January. Alternatively, try starting a topic on the forum and see if anyone can help, or buy a good brand of lab PSU with the specs you want, (which will probably be cheaper than DIY).

[tautech]

I get the occasional one too but two where in my inbox this morning ! 

I just reply asking telling them to put their question into a thread/post so that the vast experience of this communities experience assists them.

[Ian.M]

Another good reply when you just want the clueless newbie to FOAD is: "Sorry, my employment contract's non-compete clause doesn't permit me to offer private consultancy.  Try asking the forum community by starting a new topic on <name of subforum>."

[Zucca]

Anyway I miss the feature to report an irritating PM to admin.

[Kjelt]

Anyway I miss the feature to report an irritating PM to admin.

Admins can not look into your pm's only the database owner can which usually is the forumowner, and it takes a lot of hassle (remote login etc. etc.).
So you have to provide the information anyway, and this is how you can do that:

- In "My Messages" you "Quote" the PM, copy all the text.
- Press the R2M button on any of your own recent messages in any topic
- In details: Write that you received an offending PM and "paste" the PM under it.

[BravoV]

Yep, same here, occasionally got this kind of straight PMs from newly joined zero post member, asking for specific technical question, never spam/phising or any bad intention though.

Most of the times I ignored them, but some with very polite and sincerely crafted message, I usually direct them to post their question openly in the forum.

[Ian.M]

Yes, even if I feel inclined to help, I'll gently direct them to the forum, with the comment that if I'm not getting paid commercial rates, I'd prefer the question and my answer to be googlable and contribute to the community, + they get the benefits of free peer review and alternatives that may be a better fit to their needs than my choice of solution.

However zero posters don't get that response - they get one of the reasonably polite 'go forth and multiply'  responses above, the first with a timescale long enough to discourage students if I don't want to burn any bridges, the second if I truly don't give a s--t about their problem.

If you want me to take a project to PM (other than just for swapping contact details to send hardware) you'd better have interacted with me in the original topic, be willing to pay, and have a dammed good reason why it cant be kept open source, and I'll ONLY take it on if it fits my availability and I'm confident I can do a good job without needing to educate myself on your dime.

[Berni]

This is not spam

Its just a user asking a question. Tho i think that the forum should be set up so that users should have at least 5 posts before it lets them send PMs.

[G7PSK]

I have seen this question posted on the forum a few years back, so must be homework/exam question somewhere in the world.

[Zucca]

I love to help, but insted to give fish I always want to teach fishing.
So basically I told him to open a thread.

I could also point him to google....

Bottomline when someone uses a ridiculous stupid strategy with me (PM me for a PSU Project? so open an account here and then randomly PM people to get your project done? eh??  ) I always go protective and fear there is something bigger behind which somehow can harm me. I mean in internet you need to be very careful with people you don't know.

[StillTrying]

I would think most of these private PMs are just an innocent mistake by the newbie, seeing the speech bubble and clicking on that instead of Reply.
On just about every messaging platform it's possible to get confused between the public/private messaging somewhere sometime.

[Bassman59]

Its not spam if it does't involve advertising, phishing, campaigning, chain letters or malware etc. 

That just looks like a clueless newbie who expects to be handed a fully custom power supply design for free and expects their hand held while they build it and (fail to) get it working.

The correct response is:

I charge $250 per hour for consultancy, minimum four hours, 50% in advance.  Unfortunately I am fully booked at the moment and don't expect to be taking on new jobs before January. Alternatively, try starting a topic on the forum and see if anyone can help, or buy a good brand of lab PSU with the specs you want, (which will probably be cheaper than DIY).

I get this type of PM all the time on the Xilinx forum (and I've not been active there for years), and my response is the same as Ian's.

What's funny is when they bother to reply to my reply, and they say, "... but I am a poor student ..."

[Ian.M]

The 'just a poor student' is why I claim *ZERO* availability till *WAY* past any deadline they are likely to be panicking over.

If they are genuine , non-student and you really do do consultancy, you can always wait till the forum has debugged  their requirements, then offer your services on the basis that one of your current projects has been cancelled, freeing up time. and if your real rates are lower than your 'get lost' reply, offer them an introductory 'discount' to get down to the real rates + enough 'idiot tax' to make it worth breaking in a new client.

I've bailed out a few students for free or at cost over the years, but only when my required expertise to solve their problem is *NOT* in the discipline they are studying for a degree in and I found the problem technically interesting.

Persistent and clueless students either get killfiled or if doxxing them turns out to be easy, a PM reply listing their real details + the email address of their uni or college registrar followed by:

Next step:

URGENT Attn. of Academic Misconduct Committee, re: Mr <A>. <Dishonest_Scum_Sucker>

Mr <A>. <Dishonest_Scum_Sucker> has attempted to secure my services in completing <course number> <assignment_ref> on his  behalf.  <yada yada yada>

Naturally, for the integrity of the profession, I have declined.

usually gets them to FOAD, and if not, you've got the academic misconduct report all ready to send.

[Mr. Scram]

I've had messages from people asking for help. Depending on the how or what I try to point them in the right direction or redirect them to the proper forum. I don't consider it spam.

I also understand that there might be a cultural difference. I've heard from people who travelled there that in countries like Pakistan it's acceptable to straight up ask for things in a manner we might consider inappropriate. I can't verify whether that's true, but it would explain the many comments below YouTube videos asking for code and other parts of the work shown.

[rstofer]

I feel left out!  I suspect the newbies figured out pretty quick that I don't know anything...
I would just recommend opening a thread.  There are some pretty talented people willing to help.

[Zero999]

Its not spam if it does't involve advertising, phishing, campaigning, chain letters or malware etc. 

That just looks like a clueless newbie who expects to be handed a fully custom power supply design for free and expects their hand held while they build it and (fail to) get it working.

The correct response is:

I charge $250 per hour for consultancy, minimum four hours, 50% in advance.  Unfortunately I am fully booked at the moment and don't expect to be taking on new jobs before January. Alternatively, try starting a topic on the forum and see if anyone can help, or buy a good brand of lab PSU with the specs you want, (which will probably be cheaper than DIY).

I say it depends on the perception of the receiver. If the private message is annoying and unsolicited, then it's fair to judge it as spam.

What annoys me about these kind of messages is, it defeats the purpose of having a public forum, where others can both learn and give advice. If I respond I normally just tell them to start a thread in the beginners section and that private messages are not the best way to seek this kind of advice.

Fortunately this place isn't too bad for this. On another forum I used to post on, this was so common I even devised a canned response for private messages like these.

[Ian.M]

Still not spam, even though unsolicited email or PMs can be annoying.  IMHO it lacks the key definition of bulk communication (unless others report the same lUser) + asking for technical help by clueless PM isn't one of the commonly accepted types of spam.   Anyone who's ever worked helpdesk or IT admin would agree with semi-publicly LARTing them, 'pour encourager les autres' but actual spam, if traceable, deserves the introduction of a rabid  Caerbannog rabbit to the originator's trousers, or at least as far as you can go in that direction without greatly inconveniencing yourself or accidentally targeting innocents.

+1 for everything else though.

Search the forum for "Design Power Supply 30V / 5A " for what's probably the same guy or if its an assignment, one of his classmates.   I'm afraid I haven't been *entirely* helpful in that topic, though if he takes my comments on board, he'll save a lot of time and money.   (Not linked as I don't feel its fair to tie this topic to a specific new user)

[Gregg]

About a month ago I got a real spam PM:

Hi Gregg, this is Kevin, hope this message does not disturb you, I am an amazon seller in the United States, and I am selling the ts100 soldering iron, I read some of your post here in the forum and was deeply impressed, so I am thinking if you can help me do post a promotional message here, that is 50% discount for the ts100, thanks in advance

I just copied it and sent it as a PM to Dave and Dave "Nuked him"

[Zucca]

Thanks is good not to feel alone anymore.

[Zero999]

Still not spam, even though unsolicited email or PMs can be annoying.  IMHO it lacks the key definition of bulk communication (unless others report the same lUser) + asking for technical help by clueless PM isn't one of the commonly accepted types of spam.   Anyone who's ever worked helpdesk or IT admin would agree with semi-publicly LARTing them, 'pour encourager les autres' but actual spam, if traceable, deserves the introduction of a rabid  Caerbannog rabbit to the originator's trousers, or at least as far as you can go in that direction without greatly inconveniencing yourself or accidentally targeting innocents.

I see what you mean. If they start sending it to everyone and repeatedly pestering people, then I suppose it starts to smell a bit more spammy. I still think it's not a bad idea to flag this up to the moderator in case they start doing that.

Search the forum for "Design Power Supply 30V / 5A " for what's probably the same guy or if its an assignment, one of his classmates.   I'm afraid I haven't been *entirely* helpful in that topic, though if he takes my comments on board, he'll save a lot of time and money.   (Not linked as I don't feel its fair to tie this topic to a specific new user)

I haven't checked the user name, but it seems likely.