I’m starting to think that the fan mail service should be removed or at least restricted, because when I logged on 10 minutes ago, I saw these messages:
Hell, I don’t even REMEMBER editing these articles! The fan mail option is causing people to send abusive comments to me (even though they usually aren’t meant for me), so I think that something must be done!
Unfortunately, people will always abuse systems if given the chance. But I don’t think that removing the system altogether is a very good solution because there are plenty of people that use it well.
For example, we let anyone create a new article here and sometimes we get really awful things submitted. But we also get very good submissions, and so restricting it isn’t really something that we want to do.
The best advice I can give is to just ignore them. Yes, they’re annoying, but they’re usually just idiots on the Internet with nothing better to do with their time.
You also have the right to edit your fan mail page and remove any messages. However, I do agree that restricted access would not be a problem, since less trolling, hatred, etc, would show up on your page. At the very least, the access could be blocked off to anonymous/logged-out editors, since we very rarely have any of them that actually make good edits.
I just recieved those same fan mail messages. I knew i senses something fishy haha. I don’t recall ever editing that article.
I think a spam bot sent fan mail to mostly everyone who edited this article: http://www.wikihow.com/Create-a-Secure-Login-Script-in-PHP-and-MySQL
I had to [[ wikihow.com/index.php?title=User_kudos:DragonZKai7&diff=18587039&oldid=18586915
revert]] lots of user’s fan mail pages (including mine), and I’m sooo not done yet and sooo irritated about this spam bot. But, I don’t think we should get rid of the fan mail. Good mail comes every now and then, you never know.
Lojjik
6
Some of the best kudos have come from our anonymous readers who make up the vast majority of the website’s users. Removing them just isn’t the solution, nor is restricting access. Sure, you may receive a handful of undesirable messages from time to time, but these can be dealt with individually. It’s impossible to justify removing kudos entirely or restricting them from anons based on a few messages you receive.
http://forums.wikihow.com/discussion/7202/best-of-fan-mail
+1. While I say what I say, I also agree with you.
When a user sends fan mail, it’s sent to all users that have edited the article. This isn’t a spambot, nor did the IP write a message that needed to be reverted. It seems as though the IP may not have a perfect grasp of English, but that doesn’t make the message bad by any means. I did revert a few of the messages before remembering this, though.
I don’t think was related to the article, though. I can’t remember if I edited the article. Thanks Lugia for the comment!
Hailey
10
That’s nearly the same thing as getting abusive talk messages. I don’t see any reason to remove fan mail.
If you’re a prolific patroller, trust me, you don’t even have to question it. A revert from years back gets fan mail. More edits = more adoring fans, apparently
Anna
12
You can always turn off notifications for fan mail in your preferences here
. Then, you won’t even notice them anymore - and can just check the page every now and then if you want to see them
SarahB
14
I quite like to see that red heart pop up in my messages. Wow, someone loves me! Yes it can be a disappointment when I realise it’s a trolly sending me spam or worse, but it is not a big deal and as @Anna
says we can turn off notifications for fan mail.
Hailey
15
+1 Speaking of fan mail, I usually get a message once a month or so, but now I’m getting a good message from anonymous users each day. Most of them are not that mean.
Thanks @Anna
. I’m gonna delete my fan mail now, and soon I’ll never have to be bothered by bots bugging me!
Thank goodness for preferences.
