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One of the moderator tools shows you users whose posts received the most flags in the last month. This tool is useful as it may help moderators to detect problems before they get big, provide guidance to those who need it (and may actually listen), and so on.

Unfortunately, on one of the sites I moderate (Graphic Design, which attracts a lot of spam for whatever reason), this tool looks like this:

a list of spammers

As you may have guessed from the reputation and flag numbers, all of the users listed here are hit-and-run spammers. The spam posts themselves are usually deleted through flags within minutes, so there is nothing to do in that respect. The only thing I can do about them is to destroy their accounts, which would also remove them from this list. Of course, I could easily do this for those ten users, but then there are hundreds more – except for one or two possible exceptions, real users begin to show up on page 30. This renders this tool rather useless.

I am therefore asking for something to keep plain spammers from showing up there. For example:

  • Automatically destroy those spammers.
  • Implement an option to hide users where all of those flags were spam flags on a single post. (To be absolutely sure that there is nothing to be done about those spammers, one could also require that they have no profile text or other accounts.)
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  • Wait, users don't get automatically destroyed when their first post was spam/abusive (either flagged by community or handled by a mod)? I wonder why.
    – Tom
    Jul 29, 2017 at 10:23
  • Note that the site automatically deletes those accounts after 6 months.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Jul 29, 2017 at 10:26
  • 1
    @Glorfindel I believe that is no longer the case; accounts are apparently no longer deleted due to inactivity at all.
    – Aurora0001
    Jul 29, 2017 at 10:39
  • 1
    @Aurora0001 thanks, I wasn't aware of that (in defense, quite recent) change.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Jul 29, 2017 at 10:40
  • Why aren't those accounts destroyed on the spot? Are the users on GD so quick that the spam disappears before a moderator has a chance to get at it? Jul 29, 2017 at 11:00
  • @DanielFischer: Yes, most spam on GD is deleted by flags within a minute (thanks to Charcoal).
    – Wrzlprmft
    Jul 29, 2017 at 11:03
  • I think it'd be good to re-enable the automatic dead user cleanup mechanism, but only for GD. Other sites may have this enabled again if their mods demand. Jul 29, 2017 at 12:39
  • @iBug: The cleanup mechanism was only deleting users after half a year. That’s too late for the purposes of this question. Also, I doubt that GD is the only site having this problem.
    – Wrzlprmft
    Jul 29, 2017 at 12:47
  • No. According to the answer linked by Aurora0001, that mechanism was stopped on May 3rd. You may want to propose a new mechanism if you think that's too slow. Jul 29, 2017 at 12:51
  • 1
    @Wrzl did you notice that only up to page 38 even has users... I think the pagination there is broke
    – Cai
    Jul 29, 2017 at 20:42

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