Removal of spam posts

Racy

Spam posts really make me mad. The audacity of spammers to infiltrate a site used by cancer sufferers appals me.



I would like to suggest that when a member reports a post as spam or rule violation it is automatically removed pending review by the moderators, or alternatively is flagged as reported at the top of the post. This would save multiple members reading and acting to report a post that has already been reported.



If the site rules require that problem posts be reported by two members, then this suggestion could be applied after the second report.



If the moderators then determine that a reported post is ok, it could be reinstated on the forum.

badger

hi Racy, I hate it, too. 

Last I knew, it took 5 of us reporting a spam or inappropriate post to have it removed by the community.  For example, I just reported as spam two posts by lossmanos and I was the 5th person so now the content is gone.  Now all seven of his/her spam posts have been removed by the community.  Soon the mods will review the original posts and will probably nuke them and ban the spammer.

apple

i think it works as is.. i hate spam too.

Moderators

Hi All,

Yup, we got lossmanos, thanks to all of your reports! Badger you're correct; it currently takes 5 community reports to generate a community removal. At that point we, the mods, review the post and determine if it is indeed spam or not. If it is, we ban the member and remove the post(s).

Racy, we'll certainly take your thoughts into consideration. We're just as frustrated with these spammers as you are!

Thanks all for your diligence!

--The Mods

Racy

Sorry, I didn't realise it would auto disappear after five reports. I thought it had to wait for review before being removed. I was imagining many members accessing the post and being exposed to that inconvenience and possible distress.

Racy

The posts still appear on the Active Topics list even after the content is removed. Again, members would still be clicking into these removed posts unnecessarily until they disappear from the Active Topics list. Could the posts themselves also be removed at the same time as the content?

otter

I think the Moderators' responsiveness to spam posts has been amazingly fast lately.  We had a rash of spam posts a few days ago, and they were gone (removed by the Moderators -- not by the Community) literally within minutes after I clicked the "Report" button.  I think that, with (what is it now?) 100,000+ members, somebody is always on-line here and enough people notice a post to get it removed pretty quickly.

IMHO, I don't sweat the stuff in the Active Topics list.  Nobody really knows what those titles represent until they follow the link to the actual post.  If the post has been removed, there's just an empty thread title.  Those thread titles (topics) get deleted eventually -- sometimes within a very short time.

I think the Mods are doing a fantastic job on this.  I especially appreciate the continued monitoring over the weekends and after hours. 

otter

Moderators

Racy, it's true that the posts may linger in Active Topics for a while, but with no content, there's nothing for members to click in the posts themselves. And we do weed them out, although maybe not quite as quickly.

Thanks for the support - we're not fans of the spammers either.

Judith and the Mods