Vote to close or flag as spam (or both?)

Question

If I've voted for a spam question to be closed, should it still be flagged for a moderator as spam?

I figured that, regardless of the closed or open status of a question, the site/mods should be made aware of problematic account, but if it is redundant to do so, I'll let you save that spot in the flag queue for something else.

I looked around for duplicates but most of them centered around flagging questions that weren't going to make it to 5 close votes or the closing reason of "spam" that "has ceased to be."

Answer 1

You should always flag spam.

All other actions as are entirely optional. For example, voting to close a spam question (assuming you've already flagged it!) isn't going to do any harm, but probably won't achieve much either (unless the question ultimately isn't spam, but just off-topic, in which case you might still help close it).

But, just taking secondary actions (like closing) without flagging will potentially slow-down the removal of the offending content.

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And, in case you are not aware, after receiving 3 spam flags a post is removed from the front page, and after receiving 6 users flag something as spam it is automatically incinerated - zero moderator intervention required.

For further information see the faq page How does the spam flag work.

Answer 2

If enough number of people flag a post as spam - the post gets deleted and a -100 rep penalty is imposed. That doesn't happen if you vote to close.

If a post is spam - flag it as so.

Answer 3

Spam should not be closed, it should be deleted. If a post accumulates enough spam flags it is automatically deleted and the owner gets -100 reputation. A moderator can accelerate the process, but the community can delete questions on its own.

If a user repeatedly posts spam, you can additionally flag for moderator attention (using the free-form flag). Usually the spam flags are enough to get the attention of a mod, but if there is a pattern some more explanation might be helpful.