It seems many members are here for the sole purpose of posting outgoing links to their sites in the TGS blogs. I've kept the forum solicitation free and told members that since this site is about "networking," it is OK to promote their ventures in their profiles. The problem is that the blog posts are no longer what I'd call "contributions" or actual blogs. They're just solicitations and very "spammy." Once the blog section becomes polluted with too much solicitation, nobody will read it anymore.

What do we do?

Do we allow this to continue or do we implement some restrictions to blog posts?

How do we control spam yet still promote networking of individuals and golf businesses?

Give them like negative fifty karma and let em post, unless they're talking about the Golf Rock. Then they should get like a hundred and fifty positive karma points and a cookie.

One of the things I like about the blogs is the oppurtunity to check out peoples websites. With that said there are some who post excessively and I generally ignore these blogs. If the abusers blogs are not drawing traffic they will most likely move on and seek greener pastures. Maybe a "Market Place" link could be added as a seperate space where interested members could go and jump to other websites?

My opinion is a blog is not a message board it is a web log. To write your life experiences about golf in this case for me. I would say if its is about golf tips, or golfing score or some thing interesting in golf. Then I would limit the number of back links to maybe 2 or 3 max. Example I have a golf outing and I post my score and anything that is interesting in that outing with 2 or 3 links I find there is not problem with that as it is a real life experince. In additions you need to define blog what is your interpretation - it seems that some think it is a message board and a blog is not a message board it is like a diary that is it, now the reader has the option to not read there blog that is up the them.

MashieNiblick and Willard46 both make good points. I have posted a few paragraphs of a blog post on my Scruffy's Word blog...I write enough to draw the reader to go over to my blog and read "the rest of the story". I think a lot of other bloggers do that...its OK in my opinion. But when someone just posts...."free drinks" click here sort of crap, that is wrong. The blog post should have some substance.

I enjoy reading various weblogs on a daily basis and therefore subscribe to quite a few via RSS. I choose to do so because they contain legitimate content to read. Wikipedia defines a blog as follows:

A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log" ) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual [1], with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

I rarely waste my time reading any of the blogs on The Golf Space. Why? At my last sampling, more than half did not contain any legitimate content to read. No rants, opinions, golf experiences, tips, funny stories, jokes, etc. Mostly shameless self promotion, inclusive of links, better suited for a links or marketplace type page. So, when I click on that type of "blog", I am immediately annoyed and then make a mental note to avoid the linked website of the person who just wasted my time.

What to do? Do what any effective leader must do - set Expectations, Observe, and then provide Feedback. Set a rule, then perhaps enable the community to help you police members following the rule by enabling a feedback button. Once the negative feedback reaches an unacceptable level, the members "blog" is disabled.