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Kardamom's avatar

Do you think we should earn extra credit lurve for flagging spam?

Asked by Kardamom (33283points) June 18th, 2015
16 responses
“Great Question” (1points)

Any night that I’m on Fluther, and that’s most nights, I start to see the spam show up around 11:30 p.m. PST.

I try to flag any spam that I see. I never noticed this much spam before, but then again, I didn’t used to be on Fluther that late at night. Now that I have insufferable insomnia, I’m often up late, so I figure while I’m up, I might as well flag me some spam.

Do any of you know whether there is more spam now, say in the last 3 months, as opposed to the last 4 years? Or is it possible that the spammers put their stuff on late during PST, because not many people would be up at that hour to see it or to shoot it down? The only others that would likely be seeing it would be in Hawaii, and as far as I know, we only had one Jelly in Hawaii and I’m pretty sure he has taken a break from this site.

Don’t you think we should get extra lurve for flagging spam?

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Answers

wildpotato's avatar

Nah, flagging spam is community responsibility, like picking up street trash, say. But I do think it would be neat if posting a reply to spam subtracted lurve, since it creates yet more work for the unpaid mods who keep the site going.

canidmajor's avatar

Nope.

ibstubro's avatar

I think we have considerably less moderation than in the past, and that spam tends to hang out a bit longer than it used to as a result. It still only needs one flag once a moderator is on, so no, I don’t thing flagging spam should be rewarded. I feel a little uneasy flagging spam as I imagine other members have been there before me and I’m just filling the mod box up with duplicate flags.
Still, I err on the side of caution and report obvious spam.

ZEPHYRA's avatar

Yes, it is raining spam lately, now more than ever.

marinelife's avatar

Nope. It’s part of good citizenship as a user of the site.

Mimishu1995's avatar

If it was possible, then I would have been in the 20k mansion by now! ~

But no, seeing the site clean of spammers is a reward itself.

stanleybmanly's avatar

It would just be a bonus for the night owls amongst us. I don’t know what it is about the word “lurve”, but my reaction upon seeing it in print is a sort of inner frown. I can’t seem to adjust to it.

Kardamom's avatar

Does anyone know if it makes it harder for the mods if multiple Jellies flag the spam? I thought they wanted us to flag it, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I have no idea if anyone has flagged it before I got there. Is there a way to tell?

longgone's avatar

Sure, why not? It’s work you are doing to help Fluther. Thank you!

However – if I, personally, was able to give out lurve, I would award it to those who are flagging personal attacks and flame-bait, instead of newly started spam threads. It is not difficult to take a second to scan the newborn questions for spam. It is very difficult, though, to stay on top of the threads which are likely to turn into flame wars.

As to the multiple flags: They don’t bother us one bit, because they are automatically grouped together. If both @Kardamom and @ibstubro flag the same thread, we don’t get two separate notifications. Instead, we get one – with a little “2” to indicate the number of flags. When we open up that message, we see your individual flags along with anything you may have added.

TL;DR: Please flag anything which violates the guidelines. Don’t worry about multiple flags – we depend on you to tell us where there may be problems.

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

Thanks @longgone. It’s nice to get the scoop from a Mod. One more question on the subject: Is it okay if a Jelly posts, “Flagged” in the response section or is it not recommended? If not, why? There is occasionally the one-off where spamming was not the intent, but most of them are obvious.

ibstubro's avatar

Yes, Thanks, @longgone. I thought I remembered a mod saying that it wasn’t helpful for spam to be modded multiple times, so I’ve been reluctant unless it seemed really fresh. Glad you cleared that up.

Mimishu1995's avatar

@longgone How about spam profiles and spam answers? Aren’t they harder to detect? Just asking :P

Pied_Pfeffer's avatar

@Mimishu1995 Spam profiles are easy to detect. The user name may give it away. If a profile talks about the business and includes a link, then flag the profile. Another heads up is when a new user posts a question asking for a solution and another new user responds immediately with a link. Hmm, two new members that are possibly the same person or affiliated with the same company?

Berserker's avatar

It should give me experience points and loot.

longgone's avatar

@Pied_Pfeffer Posting just the one “Flagged” comment is fine. The comments which try to make fun of or engage spammers are unnecessary, though. We usually delete all posts on a spam thread, so this creates quite a bit of extra work. Removing spam threads is the most boring part of modding, by far. It’s mindless busywork, about as much fun as vacuuming. And when you log off, your house is not one bit cleaner.

@ibstubro Anytime.

@Mimishu1995 Spam profiles and spammy replies on old threads are both harder to keep track of than spammy questions, yes. We give all new jellies the once-over, but some of them are devious enough to keep their profiles spam-free for a day or two. At that point, they no longer show up in our list of Recently Joined Users, so we don’t usually visit their profiles. We are depending on you there. In general: When in doubt, flag. We’re grateful!

Here2_4's avatar

I’m sorry. Guilty. I have been posting to spammers before I flag them. I did not know it caused extra work. I thought it was a simple delete which took care of the whole page in one action. I will not do it any more. I will flag only.

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