so.. When is a topic useless/spam?

You just crossed it.

No line

Forum is useless

This is spam.

I have been thinking about this question myself. I think the distinction between a spam and not-spam thread can be a very fragile one. Generally I consider a spam thread something that doesn't give people anything beneficial, for example an opportunity for discussion, a giveaway, a funny story or a joke or something that can make people laugh, a piece of useful information etc. Of course different people have different opinions about what is useful and what is not.

This thread opens up a good chance for conversation, so therefore: I don't consider this to be spam. :) Though that is just my personal view. I guess it holds no real importance since I'm not part of the support, so I couldn't close this thread as useless even if I considered it spam.

oh the irony :P

Lately a lot of new users seem bold enough to make 2-3 threads per day... not sure why.

When the topic is not related to games, giveaways, or this site, it is spam. (That makes this topic not spam, because it's about the site.)

Posting a second thread on a topic that has already been posted can also be spam.

it's over there

I'm sure some people will consider this as SPAM.

this one is spam !

I dont know what kind of thread is spam, only I know people who post complaints about some one making to many threads in his opinion, is actually just spam.

Posts like this one!

From what I've seen on this site the dividing line seems to be whether or not the topic is related to gaming. Even then people don't really like a lot of threads. More specifically it comes down to whether or not a reader can glean useful information instead of just idle chat. Can a reader look at the thread and discover new games to try, new hardware for gaming, how to use the site better, etc...? If so, it's probably not spam. If they can't find that out then it's probably spam. Of course threads with hidden giveaways are definitely not spam but they may look like it at first glance.

What I consider a spammer? A person who makes multiple off-topic discussions just for fun.
We are allowed to have off-topic discussion which is something some of the people here are confused about, but when you make 3+ a day that's when it becomes a problem.

I think it's a shame when peoples posts get shot down even when they are annoying. It's a forum, there are always gonna be idiots who talk rubbish but it's as simple as clicking off of it.
If the forum had subsections it'd probably fix the problem of people classing threads as useless or spam because they'd have a rough idea of what they were clicking on before ending up in some random chat about cereal.

Offtopics are fine but I think when it's a dumb off topic it's not. Stuff like "How was your day?" "What's your favorite color" "Mountain Dew or Pepsi" Those are spam imo.

I'm also wondering if giveaway topics can be spam. Can I make 10 threads in 10 minutes, all with a different giveaway? It's a giveaway so it's not spam right? Always wanted to see what the result of that would be. ;p but been too lazy. lol

Honestly, there should really be more than 1 single forum board. Maybe 1 for giveaways/contests, one for steamgames related discussions, and one for general/off-topic stuff.

And for the people who freak out about post count, any posts in the "off topic" board would not count towards post count.

All threads are spam and having debates does not necessarily add to the forums

All threads should be about kittens playing with yarn

A thread is considered spam when enough wee fuckin no life arse lickers go complaining to the admins about it.