2 years, 2 months ago
Will you help fight spam on mahalo? Can a staff member give insight on what to look for in spam?
As many of you know, I don't sleep much at night. I can't help but notice the extreme large amount of spam lately on mahalo, especially during the this time. (about 3am to 6am eastern time). I am marking any I see as uninteresting, then reporting it as well. I think we need a staff member to let members know what to look for. I always look for things that involve www. address or downloads. I am assuming it takes so many reports before these people will be taken care of.
It's NOT fair to the good citizens here at mahalo to get their questions removed from the front page so quickly, not getting answers. It also not enjoyable to have to sift through the spam to find an interesting question.
It's NOT fair to the good citizens here at mahalo to get their questions removed from the front page so quickly, not getting answers. It also not enjoyable to have to sift through the spam to find an interesting question.
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M$3 Answers
Great question.
I am not staff but do have some staff like permissions here so if you find anything spammy send me the urls via direct question and I will take care of it on the double. I hate seeing spam push real questions as much as you do.
Some things to look for in spam detecting.
~~ like recent postings anything that directly asks us to go to another site.
Could be to buy handbags or read the posters article on a recent news item. i.e "what are some great handbags? <~ perfectly fine "What are some great handbags at this website (url)?" <~spam and those other ones recently where the poster has decided to use Mahalo Answers to promote the articles of another website. This guy has just been obvious and is posting a url _as_ the question. I have even seen a poster looking to sell their personal Avon website here. Spam.
~~ Be very suspicious
Many spammers have been sneaky recently and one user will post a "where do I download "blah blah blah" for free?" and their partner will post the spam links as an answer. Poof! best answer selected and the spam module is complete. We can stop this in its tracks by answering the question with a safe non spam method (if there is one) answer forcing the poster to now make a decision. .. do I violate tos and pick the spam answer or let this one go to voting. .. where importantly we have to be able to spot the spam answer and simply not vote for it... reporting it along the way asking for it to be removed. This trick has been going on a lot recently.
~~ spy view
Watching spy view helps see spam as it comes in and will get it off the site faster. Use the spy view to detect and report as the spam comes in. We can also see here the questions the get answered as soon as they are asked usually in a bunch or 3/5 and the asker will select best answer right away. Report these to staff and send me the links via direct question. On spy we can stay on the cutting edge and get to the spam before it gets to us.
~~ reporting
When reporting to staff be sure to be very descriptive in the report. Use this opportunity to say "Everything this user posts is spam. Please check the entire profile". A good report will get them banned by IP address and they will have to start again with a new one. They will start again but the bump in the road will slow the down a bit and hopefully ad a measure of frustration to the process if it happens to them more than a few times.
Corey does not see many of the spam postings we do. We have to help him see what we do and be his eyes. We should report, report, report every single suspicious posting and ask other to do so as well. He will get as annoyed with the spammer as we do and help out by removing the postings and investigating the users.
Hopefully a staff member sees this question today and gives us a great staff perspective on the issue of spam because a good description of what spam is from a staff member will go a lot farther than mine will with a larger group of users.
I am not staff but do have some staff like permissions here so if you find anything spammy send me the urls via direct question and I will take care of it on the double. I hate seeing spam push real questions as much as you do.
Some things to look for in spam detecting.
~~ like recent postings anything that directly asks us to go to another site.
Could be to buy handbags or read the posters article on a recent news item. i.e "what are some great handbags? <~ perfectly fine "What are some great handbags at this website (url)?" <~spam and those other ones recently where the poster has decided to use Mahalo Answers to promote the articles of another website. This guy has just been obvious and is posting a url _as_ the question. I have even seen a poster looking to sell their personal Avon website here. Spam.
~~ Be very suspicious
Many spammers have been sneaky recently and one user will post a "where do I download "blah blah blah" for free?" and their partner will post the spam links as an answer. Poof! best answer selected and the spam module is complete. We can stop this in its tracks by answering the question with a safe non spam method (if there is one) answer forcing the poster to now make a decision. .. do I violate tos and pick the spam answer or let this one go to voting. .. where importantly we have to be able to spot the spam answer and simply not vote for it... reporting it along the way asking for it to be removed. This trick has been going on a lot recently.
~~ spy view
Watching spy view helps see spam as it comes in and will get it off the site faster. Use the spy view to detect and report as the spam comes in. We can also see here the questions the get answered as soon as they are asked usually in a bunch or 3/5 and the asker will select best answer right away. Report these to staff and send me the links via direct question. On spy we can stay on the cutting edge and get to the spam before it gets to us.
~~ reporting
When reporting to staff be sure to be very descriptive in the report. Use this opportunity to say "Everything this user posts is spam. Please check the entire profile". A good report will get them banned by IP address and they will have to start again with a new one. They will start again but the bump in the road will slow the down a bit and hopefully ad a measure of frustration to the process if it happens to them more than a few times.
Corey does not see many of the spam postings we do. We have to help him see what we do and be his eyes. We should report, report, report every single suspicious posting and ask other to do so as well. He will get as annoyed with the spammer as we do and help out by removing the postings and investigating the users.
Hopefully a staff member sees this question today and gives us a great staff perspective on the issue of spam because a good description of what spam is from a staff member will go a lot farther than mine will with a larger group of users.
source(s):
I hate spam
I hate spam
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
I'm on in the US night time too and there does seem to be a lot come through at that point. Ones where there are obvious URLs just posted as an answer not even related to the question are annoying to me. I report them but wonder how long it takes for them to go away
source(s):
personal opinion
personal opinion
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Great Question. Mahalo is Spam. Call it Adsense, call it questions designed to bring attention to peoples own pages, call it questions asked to bring attention (to questions) for adsense. You are a purple belt, so you already know this. So as to your question fight spam on mahalo. Think about it, Mahalo is spam.
source(s):
Mahalo is spam!
Mahalo is spam!
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
don't forget deleting double questions posted on MA too.
@chriswingate I disagree on the double questions thing. If it was something asked recently, fair enough - but if enough time has gone by the previous answer may no longer be the best answer.
People need to be able to ask the same thing again.
Another good way to label spam is to down-vote the question. If enough people do it, spammers will start to get the message.