A quick comment on spam

[Brickdoctor]

Hi, I was wondering if perhaps it might help in the ever-present war on spam, if the Report button on a profile actually locked that person's account from posting further until a MOD reviewed the situation, or perhaps, this lock could occur after being reported for multiple separate topics. I cannot speak to how often the report button is used erroneously, but that seems like something like this might help.

Then again, this might be too close to vigilante justice for the Mods' preferences. Just my two cents.

You'd be surprised how many reports we get for minor offenses or petty disagreements. I think this sort of functionality would just be asking to be abused.

[Artanis I]

If we were to report all of the moderators at once ( ) who could unlock them? And then who would take down all of the leaked pics?

[GallardoLU]

If we were to report all of the moderators at once ( ) who could unlock them? And then who would take down all of the leaked pics?

There is a certain part of me that would love to see the results of that, the complete derailment of every major thread in mere minutes, then the flame wars followed be walls of spam. it would be the end of our digital society as we know it.... at least until Hinkley and the other Admin accounts could arrive to fix everything.

[Robert8]

What are you guys planning?

It would be funny to see Hinckley, Stash2Sixx and the other mods returning with zombie apocalypse survivor avatars lol

[makoy]

I reported a spam earlier in the newly upgraded forum... and I thought it would be less vulnerable to spams after the upgrade. Nope? 

 

[dr_spock]

8 minutes ago, makoy said:

I reported a spam earlier in the newly upgraded forum... and I thought it would be less vulnerable to spams after the upgrade. Nope? 

 

If it is a real person behind the spam, they can follow the process to register an userid.  It is hard to stop a real person paid cheaply in a low wage country to go around spamming.

[makoy]

2 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

If it is a real person behind the spam, they can follow the process to register an userid.  It is hard to stop a real person paid cheaply in a low wage country to go around spamming.

Right... I know it could be the case and there is no stopping real person from doing that.

And I'm glad you mentioned it. It seems that there is no way to report a person now.

[dr_spock]

You can still report the spam posts.  The MODs can deal with the user through those reports notifications.

 

[makoy]

10 minutes ago, dr_spock said:

You can still report the spam posts.  The MODs can deal with the user through those reports notifications.

 

That's exactly what I did. Just noticed that reporting user is no longer supported :)

[JopieK]

MOD's now even get an email about spam reports, seems you are on an anti-spam mission makoy haha ;)

[makoy]

3 hours ago, JopieK said:

MOD's now even get an email about spam reports, seems you are on an anti-spam mission makoy haha ;)

I thought it was already standard back then... haha.  

[xboxtravis7992]

I just noticed I can't find the report button on the new mobile version of the site. That is going to make it harder to flag spam.

[samurai-turtle]

3 hours ago, xboxtravis7992 said:

I just noticed I can't find the report button on the new mobile version of the site. That is going to make it harder to flag spam.

Funny you should say that it is the "flag icon"  next to the date/time posted under the poster's name. 

[makoy]

I was on holiday so I wasn't able to flag spams as many as I used to. It is actually next to the post date in mobile...just look for a blue/light blue flag. 

[xboxtravis7992]

21 hours ago, samuraiturtle said:

Funny you should say that it is the "flag icon"  next to the date/time posted under the poster's name. 

Yeah I just noticed that little flag. So yeah the function is still there I guess. I was just looking for a traditional report button.

[Bob De Quatre]

There a new feature that allows you to report a post without giving a comment... Please don't use it! How can you imagine that we'll deal with a problem if you don't say what is the problem? And things are not always obvious.

[BrickCurve]

Just a thought; I noticed that quite the last batch of spam I saw (and reported) have all had URLs as the topic title.  Perhaps flagging posts that use a URL in the title for double checking by moderators would help?  I certainly can't remember seeing a non spam thread with a URL as the title!

Edited December 16, 2016 by BrickCurve
Fixed a typo.

[makoy]

I've been reporting spam since I joined here and that's not new at all. When I am active I can easily spot spam under 2 minutes of them posting so maybe they don't live long enough to be seen by many... However there are days that I forget to check "all activity" but when I do remember I try to spot as many spams as I can.

I'm sure moderators actively monitor those... but it's a reactive measure. If there is an opportunity to crowdsource spam deletion, I'm sure there is a script out there that can hide/delete topics once it reached a threshold (e.g. 5 reports) because I've came across something similar years ago when I was still active on being forum admin-- if many trusted spam reporters submits a report then mods don't need to do mundane task of deleting them one by one.

[Hinckley]

12 hours ago, BrickCurve said:

Just a thought; I noticed that quite the last batch of spam I saw (and reported) have all had URLs as the topic title.  Perhaps flagging posts that use a URL in the title for double checking by moderators would help?  I certainly can't remember seeing a on spam thread with a URL as I title!

I like this idea. Did they have an

http://

or just a www?

[BrickCurve]

10 hours ago, Hinckley said:

I like this idea. Did they have an

http://

or just a www?

Just looked through my history and they were all http://

EDIT:  The two spam threads I saw in general discussion today were http:// as well.

Edited December 16, 2016 by BrickCurve

[VaderFan2187]

Only have seen one spam so far. Some skincare thingy.

Appreciate what the mods and everyone are doing :)

[ColletArrow]

Reported my first spam today!

It seems there is a common format from what I've seen both before and as a member:
The title is around 4-5 words plucked from the middle of an English sentence that makes no sense on it's own, making them easy to spot, and the topic consists of a single link labelled as live streaming for a sports match, which when clicked tries to download a file - presumably a virus. I wonder if it would be possible to automatically remove any topics whose contents are all hyperlinks and no normal text, removing this potential threat?

Other than these rare interruptions, my time so far has been excellent - keep up the good work!

[VaderFan2187]

2 hours ago, ColletArrow said:

and the topic consists of a single link labelled as live streaming for a sports match, which when clicked tries to download a file - presumably a virus.

Never ever click the links!

[ColletArrow]

I know that, but it only came up with the message 'do you want to open or save this file', and I clicked cancel. And my computer still exists, because I am typing on it now!

[Darkdragon]

20 hours ago, ColletArrow said:

I know that, but it only came up with the message 'do you want to open or save this file', and I clicked cancel. And my computer still exists, because I am typing on it now!

Perhaps, or maybe you are the virus trying to trick us all into thinking you are a real person!