What is the point in the Spam Button??

blue_monkey_2

I pressed the spam button last week and got the message that 'it had not been reported but would if others complained'.

What is the point in it being there then?

Spammers can go on spamming the boards as long as they have a good offer and people don't complain? I can't see the point in it - anyone else??

I've got a good offer on my website - can I post that and as long as only a few people complain it stays there?

Also, if I see someone has 'reported spam' I never report it as I assume it is being dealt with and the mods would be inundated with mails on the same thing. So what is the point in having a Spam button that only reports Spam if, what, 20 or so people think it is?


INSERT!

Thread closed please continue in the official discussion

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1930737

frivolous_fay

Whenever I click on it it says MSE have not yet been told about it.
This is even after people say they have reported it.
I don't know if that means the message is wrong, or if they have reported it old-stylee?

rsykes2000

I think it needs a certain number of people clicking on it. Most times it says MSE have not been told, but here has been a couple of times that I have clicked on the button and it has said it has been reported.

fermi

It is two parallel systems.

One is the normal report abuse system via email. Via the .

Martin's @abuse team will look at those reports and act accordingly if needed. But they get hundreds of reports a day and can't be online 24/7, so that often takes time for them to get to it.

The other is the button. You or me can click that and flag a thread as possible spam. Once a certain number have clicked then the thread is hidden and the MSE team alerted.

The POINT is that it can help get rid of obvious spam from the boards much more quickly than would otherwise be the case, especially at times like overnight or at weekends when MSE team may not be about as much.

Former_MSE_Andrea

What fermi said ^

blue_monkey_2

Yes, but ONLY if people are reporting it enough, if someone else has typed 'spam reported' then I never bother reporting it as well so then is does not work, surely?

MSE_Martin

Some interesting points above... thanks for raising them

I do think its a good idea we stop the "spam reported" posts, and just click the spam button instead.

Sadly we can't have it so one person presses spam and the post disappears it would be open to abuse - but we have found the spam button works well. - however it does appear the messages given are confusing. We'll look

blue_monkey_2

I think people need more explaination of how it works as it is frustrating to press the button and then get told that there has not been any point as it has not been reported. I just then send an email and then you get the Spam Reported and an email. And then you think 'what's the point' and then it has the opposite effect. I've seen 2 spam postings recently and I've 'reported' them with the button and nothing has happened as no-one else bothered reporting them.

fermi

MSE_Martin wrote: »

I do think its a good idea we stop the "spam reported" posts, and just click the spam button instead.

To be fair, that is not always a good plan.

While I dislike excessive replies to spam since it just keeps the thread at the top of the board, a quick reply stating that "this is spam, please report and/or click spam button and don't reply" does help as long as it isn't "ages" after the post.

I do that at times, and it is necessary and a reasonable thing to do.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Sadly we can't have it so one person presses spam and the post disappears it would be open to abuse - but we have found the spam button works well. - however it does appear the messages given are confusing. We'll look

For me the message stays for a few seconds. Hardly enough to read.

It also needs to give people a link to the normal @abuse system as well. The 2 sytsems have got to work together.

frivolous_fay

Hello,

Something I've just noticed that perhaps could be tweaked.

A post that has been removed, or hidden with the Spam button, (I don't know which) is still visible in the 'Last Post' section.

Thus, I can see this thread http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?goto=newpost&t=1879463 has been posted,
although not view it.

redux

I don't think the spam button works that well

4 days after pressing the spam button on a couple of posts of very obvious spam, I emailed a report instead.

They disappeared within an hour, but of course it's impossible to guess method which worked in those cases

But I've found other posts I've labelled spam still there a week later, while the fastest deletion of some I reported by email is about 3 minutes