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Over on the Drupal Answers site, I have seen a bunch of suggested edits that are more than likely from spambots. I don't recall seeing this behavior before, and it has happened a bunch of times the last two days.

There have been two "types".

The first looks like a user gets created, and this user edits an existing answer and adds in a spam link before another link in the answer. I have also seen an existing answer get copied verbatim, and a spam link added before other link.

This happened in the following cases:

The suggested edits are anonymous edits that totally replace the text with spam links.

I have been rejecting and flagging these as appropriate.

I am curious, though, whether there is an increase in this type of spam on other sites, or if it is just the DA site. I don't have enough rep on other sites to get the suggested edits tab on the review page to see if it is happening elsewhere.

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  • I've seen it a couple of times recently here on Meta, particularly the first type of abuse. It's too hard to say if this happens on Stack Overflow, since most of the users I would be inclined to assume are bots actually have real people sitting behind the keyboard. But that's a whole other problem...
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 12:45
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    I've been pretty active in the Stack Overflow suggested edit review tool for the past couple of weeks and I haven't noticed much spam there.
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:04
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    One example yesterday, and even accidentally approved, @Bill.
    – Arjan
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:14
  • @Arjan Luxury fashion? Seems totally legit on SO. ;)
    – Bill the Lizard Mod
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:18
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    Yup, @Bill, that must be why two users approved that edit. (Kudos to Sha Dow Wiz Ard for finding that, by the way.)
    – Arjan
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:23
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    As for your examples: seems the quality filter needs to scan for BBCode too...?
    – Arjan
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:28
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    We've gotten edits similar to these on Android.SE periodically. Here's one from yesterday. I know I've seen it happen before that, too.
    – eldarerathis
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 13:44
  • @kiamlaluno, I am not sure your edits are correct. My recollection (backed up my flagging summary) is that question 29677 had the spam edit made directly to an answer, and question 20893 had the answer cloned to include a spam link.
    – mpdonadio
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 15:38
  • @MPD I don't see any suggested edits done for any of the answers for the question 29677, while the question 20893 is the one linked with the first link. The suggested edits I reported here are the spammy ones done this month. You can see the suggested edits you rejected on this page.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 15:48
  • @kiamlaluno, both questions are in my flag summary w/ custom reasons. The flag on 29677 still points to a valid answer (which suggests the spam edit), while 20893 points to a deleted answer (which suggests the cloned answer w/ the spam link).
    – mpdonadio
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 15:54
  • @MPD There aren't any rejected edits for question 29677, or any of its answers.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 16:05
  • @kiamlaluno, I didn't reject the edit. I flagged w/ custom reason so a mod could take care of the spammer at the same time.
    – mpdonadio
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 16:26
  • @MPD You flagged an answer that has not been spammed.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 17, 2012 at 17:07

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