Spam button is useless, better system needed.

Swan_2

aliasojo, there's more info about the new form HERE

you're one of the chosen

aliasojo

Thanks swan...I didn't see that thread but I've commented on it now.

I feel so special.

Swan_2

aliasojo wrote: »

Thanks swan...I didn't see that thread but I've commented on it now.

I feel so special.

lol, me too

although the old system worked perfectly for me, this new one just seems so much slicker & more user-friendly

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

I've been thinking about the problem of Spam and have just found this thread which echoes some of my thoughts.

As stated previously, to flag a thread as Spam a certain number of members must click the Spam button. This means that a certain number of members must be aware of the offending thread and must also be sufficiently motivated to click.

Many members confine themselves to certain sub-areas of the Forum and may not be aware of Spam elsewhere, although they would be willing to take action if made aware.

A low-tech solution might be to have a sticky thread where a sufficiently keen member could post a link to a Spammy thread to alert other sufficiently keen members of its existence.

A high-tech solution would be to automatically PM willing volunteers with the details whenever someone clicks a Spam button. This might not be possible without major changes to the Forum software.

Either of these options would still require a significant number of people to agree that a post was indeed Spam by clicking the Spam button for themselves after notification, meaning that threads could not be maliciously removed by a single person.

Any thoughts?

aliasojo

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

Any thoughts?

I think the process I am able to use at present i.e. the report post triangle is working well now and is fine for reporting spam, abuse etc.

Anything else is a faff, imo.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

aliasojo wrote: »

I think the process I am able to use at present i.e. the report post triangle is working well now and is fine for reporting spam, abuse etc.

Anything else is a faff, imo.

Fair enough. I was trying to think of a way to mobilise sufficient people to hide an offending thread automatically rather than waiting for someone to respond to an e-mail.

kermitfrog

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

Fair enough. I was trying to think of a way to mobilise sufficient people to hide an offending thread automatically rather than waiting for someone to respond to an e-mail.

So you want the boards moderated by computer? Or by mob rule?

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

kermitfrog wrote: »

So you want the boards moderated by computer? Or by mob rule?

Hi Kermit. I'm not quite sure how you discerned that from my post. I merely wanted to devise a mechanism to quickly bring* people's attention to potentially Spammy posts. They would then naturally make up their own minds whether or not to click the Spam button, as happens at present.
:beer:


*I split an infinitive and I don't care.

Premier_2

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

Hi Kermit. I'm not quite sure how you discerned that from my post. ...

Perhaps when you said:

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

..I was trying to think of a way to mobilise sufficient people to hide an offending thread automatically...

Sounds like mob rule to me.

All you need to do is PM all your mates, or if you are Billy Nomates, just create a load of user accounts yourself.

Either way, once the system has been abused a couple of times, hopefully the FT will see the pattern and take appropriate action to prevent such further abuse by those users in future.

Meanwhile, others can continue to use the successful current system already in place to report spam, abuse, etc

Sceptic001

Premier wrote: »

Perhaps when you said:



Sounds like mob rule to me.

All you need to do is PM all your mates, or if you are Billy Nomates, just create a load of user accounts yourself.

Either way, once the system has been abused a couple of times, hopefully the FT will see the pattern and take appropriate action to prevent such further abuse by those users in future.

Meanwhile, others can continue to use the successful current system already in place to report spam, abuse, etc

Premier, I appreciate that there are may be cases where posters take against each other and report each others postings, but in the forum I frequent (Savings & Investments), our problem is a persistent spammer who posts adverts for dodgy financial websites. He/she signs up as a new user two or three times a day and posts in a dozen or more threads. What we want is some means to remove the posts or suspend the poster's account asap, rather than depending on the forum team to delete posts which can take several hours. Surely some technical wizard can come up with a system which automates this, but allows for the alleged offending poster to complain if he/she thinks the Abuse report is malicious?