Shady Practice?

I belong to a group where club owners are always sending out notices to hire DJs. I got one of these notices a while ago and opened up the application the owner had attached.

It was fairly standard till I got to this little nugget:

"All staff must also retain membership in the general group. When you go out shopping or other places, you can invite others to the general group by right clicking a person, selecting "more", then the group name. Their name will be put into a window. You can keep this window open and continue accumulating names as long as you wish. Don't actually send the invitation till after you leave the area."

So, forum friends, what do you think? Is this standard practice, or would this just annoy you no end? Is it considered spamming, or is this okay behavior in most sims?

For the record, I have never been to the club, nor have I ever met the owner. I'm simply curious to find out what you folks think about this.

It would annoy me no end. And I'm amused by the following:

Invisible addendum: "Because some people will get thoroughly pissed off with you and might hassle you if you don't do the chicken thing and leg it before you spam them with group invites."

Drive-by spamming... The reason for doing it this way is so that you can get as many avatars spammed as possible before getting ejected and banned from the sim you're "inviting" people on. (T_T)

Abhorrent Spamming, if it isn't against the TOS, it should be.

Yup, bad jujus for sure on that one. I'd be exiting that group if I saw that little nugget. I would not want to be associated with a spam happy group. And that also explains why I've been getting all kinds of weird random group invites lately LOL I never could figure out why complete strangers were targeting me for their groups......now I get it.

I would post the name of the club that does this, but I don't want to single anyone out just in case a lot of others do it.

not just a shady practice, but positively midnight...

Well, at least the spam invites tell me what places to stay away from.

Extremely bad juju and as a professional DJ if I knew a club expected such behavior from their staff, I either would never ask to work there in the first place, or if I was a DJ, immediately quit with extreme prejudice and tell the entire group why I'm leaving.

Well, I'm unlikely to ever work there, let alone visit. If you saw this application coming through the pipeline, would you AR the owner(s)? Or would you simply never recommend people go to that club?

I don't believe there's anything in that application that would get LL's attention as a valid AR so filing one would be a major waste of time, but I certainly would never recommend to anybody that they visit the club in question, and also discourage people from going there if they express some interest in doing so. It's a very unethical place from what I'm reading.

When I get a group invite for a group I have no relationship to from someone I don't know I AR both the person and the group owner. This kind of thing is precisely why spam is an AR category.

I really really dislike this.

It is extremely unprofessional and only loser groups do this. It is definitely a tactic of a person of low character.

What club is this?

I want to make sure i never go there.

It's called Durga.

Durga????


Like, from Team America??

Durga Durga! (translation = blow up the Eiffel tower)

...f**k yeah...

Shady, obnoxious, and overflowing with fail.

I don't think you can AR the owners just for the statement in the application, but that is just wrong, and I bet any employee who does this will rack up a few. My reaction if someone did this to me would be to mute and move on. If I made a note of the club, it would be to add it to my list of places I will now NEVER visit.

ETA: To answer the original question, I don't think this is a common practice, or an acceptable one.

No, I think it's from some Indian thing. After taking a look at the owner's profile, it's evident she's into all that mystical stuff.

When I was DJing on Monday, some n00b showed up and spammed everyone in my club with a group tag. She spammed me twice, so I can only assume she did the same to everyone else. I contacted the owner of the group and informed them I'd be ARing that person and banning anyone who spammed with group tags if this practice didn't stop. That it was very disruptive to the club at the time.

She claimed to have kicked that person out of the group and said she'd "talk to the Sales Dept.", which was more or less a brush off to appease me.

I still may AR the lot of them.

What do I think?

I want to know who the club's owners are so I can get an AR ready...

I don't know whether it's standard, having never polled club or group owners. But if I get spammed with a group invite just for being in the same vicinity as someone I've never met, I not only decline it, I might tend to alert the shop or sim owner as well. Depends what type of day I am having and whether the person even said "hello" or asked me if I'd be interested in it first.

Most sims do not allow it.

If the place makes staff do this, it's tacky, rude and can get you banned anywhere you might oblige.

Well this is what sent up red flags about the application, and one of the reasons I would not apply to DJ at this club. Apart from telling staff members to do this right on the application (which I keep a copy of just to show to people), the owner gives instructions NOT to send the invites until after leaving the sim.

In the past, I've had random group invites without the person leaving the sim first, giving me ample opportunity to inform them in local that what they're doing is irritating, and possibly against ToS.

Sad fact is, said n00b is probably one of many n00bs enticed by that group (with the promise of L$ as remuneration - "I'm new! How can I earn money?" and will end up wondering, when she's no longer a n00b, why on earth she's banned from so many places in SL.

That's even worse. I've been hit by group spam too and couldn't find who did it.

So they know it's wrong and will get people in trouble. They only care about how to keep doing it without getting caught (it sounds like.) Ugh.

I don't even like getting a group invitation for the place I am already in, to be honest. A lot of clubs send them to every guest, to try to make them wear the tag.

To be honest, I hate that, too. When I'm DJing and notice someone new come in, I will always ask before I hit them with a tag. If they say they don't want it, I say, "Sure thing" and just carry on with the conversation.

I do NOT like being hit with a tag the second I walk through the door of any club. Fact is, I DJ at a lot of different places and must maintain empty slots for staff/VIP groups. I just assume others have similar reasons.