Spam button is useless, better system needed.

Tixy

Fruit_and_Nut_Case wrote: »

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.

We have an informal system a bit like this on the DFW boards which often seems to extend to reporting spammers on other Pure Money boards. If people see an obvious spammer they report it on this thread https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/34570253#Comment_34570253 (linked to an example) so that people on there will also go and click on the Spam button or abuse button, works quite well I think especially in the evenings/at night when threads are quiet.

forgotmyname

I dont like the way the system works, Opening my email client, But it always opens the wrong one.

I am an AOL beta tester and have several versions of AOL installed, 1 for everyday use and 2 or 3 beta versions.

It always opens the beta versions which are not my email address i use on here.

Why not have a spam button for each post?

fermi

I can't speak for any other BGs, but if you see spam only any of my boards then please send me a PM.

BGs are allowed to remove spam posts and report them to the Forum Team for review.

If I happen to be online then that can help things get sorted sooner.

robt_2

forgotmyname wrote: »

I dont like the way the system works, Opening my email client, But it always opens the wrong one.

I am an AOL beta tester and have several versions of AOL installed, 1 for everyday use and 2 or 3 beta versions.

It always opens the beta versions which are not my email address i use on here.

Why not have a spam button for each post?

To be fair, if you can't fix that then you shouldn't be using beta software.

As it happens, a new system is being trialled for reporting posts which uses a form rather than your email client

Biggles

forgotmyname wrote: »

I dont like the way the system works, Opening my email client, But it always opens the wrong one.

It will presumably always open the one that you have identified in Windows as your default email client. You could change the default.

edgex

Reaper wrote: »

The spam-in-a-thread is getting annoying. There are some simple measures that could be done...

1) When somebody posts compare it with their previous posts. If the last few posts are identical then it is spam and should be deleted and their posting privilages suspended until MSEs can check.

2) An alternative to the above is just to look at how often they have posted. If a new member has posted lots of times in a minute it should flag them as potential spammers without the need to wait for somebody to send an abuse email.

3) While the Tiny url shortner has been blocked others still work such as canurl.com - block all the url shortening sites.

4) With bulk spammers I suspect people may not have reported them thinking that somebody else will. Other times I am sure MSE is flooded. The Abuse button could be improved to allow a person (not just one post) to be flagged as a spammer and be greyed out if somebody else has already done it.

Sceptic001 wrote: »

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?

1) time delay between registering & ability to post, eg 24hrs
2) restrict number of posts allowed by new users, eg 5/10 in first 24/48hrs
3) use a 'captcha' on new posts
4) moderate all first posts, so they have to be 'approved' before they are posted
5) compare posts to a set of 'spam' posts
6) stop search engines from spidering anything less than 24hrs old

edgex

Premier wrote: »

(2) Your suggestion will fail for a number or reasons, not only because:
(a) MSE Martin wishes to attract and welcome new users, not prevent them from posting until their posts are vetted by the FT
(b) Like the BG's, the FT are not aways here either (which, if your idea were to be implemented, may delay new users participating on the forum).
(c) MSE Martin wouldn't want to further burden the FT with vetting all posts by new users
(d) This site is not actively moderated, something you are recommending for all new members posts. This is based on legal advice given to Martin. Martin has been informed he benefits from limited immunity operating under the alert & react policy he currently does. It is not for Martin, or anyone at MSE, to change this policy. Martin will only change this if his legal advisers inform him to, if for no other reason than his insurance obligations require this of him.

If you spot spam, alert it and ignore. The FT will action your alert when they get to it. As already mentioned, if the same (new) user is making multiple spam posts, you only need to report one and explain the situation that it involves many/all the user's posts (or better still report the user rather than a post). The FT will, if it agrees, remove all the user's posts and will often revoke posting priviledges of the offending user to prevent that account being used for further spam attacks.

would automated moderation be active moderation?
would moderating a new users first 5/10 posts be active moderation of the forums, when they are probably 1-5% of the posts each day?