Questions tagged [spam]
This tag is for questions about suspected user spam, the spam flag or combating spam as a community.
724
questions
26
votes
2
answers
335
views
Explicitly mention the consequences of the different user destruction options
There are two options when destroying a user:
While it might not look that way from the dialog, the consequences of the two options are somewhat different. Both remove the user and all their posts, ...
- 21.7k
14
votes
1
answer
320
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If *all* of a user's many answers promote the same thing but they properly disclose affiliation, is it spam?
I just saw a user on a small site posting a bunch of uncited AI-generated posts (which is plagiarism) that all promote the same thing. They properly disclose their affiliation in each post.
I read ...
GlorfindelMod
- 248k
10
votes
1
answer
188
views
Why can't I improve / reject and edit this suggested edit?
I just encountered a suggested edit on a post that is possibly spam. Given its score, it's likely to have a couple of pending spam flags already. What is interesting, and a possible bug, is that the ...
- 1,541
0
votes
0
answers
13
views
Too many low quality questions and non-questions with the Python tag Stack Overflow today [migrated]
I am wondering if Stack Overflow has been compromised by spammers. Within a few minutes, I have flagged a lot of questions which are either non-questions or low-quality and they all have the python ...
- 101
-5
votes
0
answers
167
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My question is tagged SPAM. What must I modify to be able to post it? [duplicate]
My question below is tagged spam. What must I modify to be able to post it?
I was able to post this on Meta, but not on Stack Overflow. The error message was: "Your question appears to be spam.&...
- 6,675
-16
votes
2
answers
279
views
Are spammers and trolls part of the community?
This is a much more philosophical question than most. It is inspired by the question Is "the community" an arbiter or an authority of "belonging" on the site? as it relates to the ...
- 15.4k
319
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Add optional box for spam flags letting you say why you think it's spam
This came up recently, where a user had taken the time to look at the link on a post and realized that the post wasn't just off-topic, it was actually half-decently-disguised spam. So he flagged it as ...
313
votes
2
answers
32k
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What are the “spam” and “rude or abusive” (offensive) flags, and how do they work?
When flagging, there are two special case options: spam and rude or abusive.
What is spam, and when should I flag content as such?
What is considered offensive, rude or abusive content?
How does the ...
- 1,541
20
votes
2
answers
338
views
Using GPT-3 or similar tools to mass-produce low-quality answers
Consider this answer to this question:
The couple in question is James Morley and his wife, Liu Xiaobo.
hope this helped.
That's the kind of thing that GPT-3 or a similar AI would misinterpret out ...
- 170k
77
votes
2
answers
3k
views
More than 15k bottles of Viagra from Kenya, asking 110+ people for money, seriously?
I received a strange mail from a well-known SE user with the following body two days ago:
HALLO EVERYONE. I am writing to you from Kenya. I have recently come into contact with a great bunches of ...
CommunityBot
- 1
36
votes
0
answers
240
views
Auto suspend the user network-wide if their accounts have been destroyed on a certain number (e.g. 3) of sites
Possibly related; might be an extension or alternative to: A user should just be destroyed network-wide automatically if it has no upvoted content and is destroyed on two independent sites by mods ...
- 170k
46
votes
2
answers
1k
views
The rate limiting system for posts is on strike; can it please be made to work?
Ten posts in eight minutes. I don't see a reason why anyone should be posting this fast, especially not a brand new user. This is only the most recent example, not the one that's posted the most:
It ...
CommunityBot
- 1
39
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Does the Charcoal team plan to run SmokeDetector again?
There have been several posts complaining about increased visibility of spam posts.1 At least part of the reason was the fact that the Charcoal team participated in the strike and SmokeDetector wasn't ...
- 15.2k
9
votes
2
answers
272
views
What exactly do VoteTypeId=4 (offensive) and VoteTypeId=12 (spam) mean?
According to the Database schema documentation for SEDE, the table Votes contains as VoteTypeId 4 = Offensive and 12 = Spam. The latter was mentioned, for example, here: How to find posts closed as ...
- 15.2k
9
votes
0
answers
253
views
Recent proliferation of spam on Server Fault [duplicate]
In the past couple of months I'm seeing a lot more spam on Server Fault. Until a few months ago I virtually never saw spam, and now virtually every time I visit there are money lenders, abortion pills,...
- 6,675
-14
votes
1
answer
382
views
Temporarily reduce the 5-second rate limit on flagging posts as spam, to allow for quicker flagging on sites overrun with spam
SmokeDetector is currently disabled due to the moderation strike. This means that some specific sites are overrun with spam, and when I go through and flag each of those spam posts, I keep running ...
- 3,641
5
votes
1
answer
425
views
Why can't we blacklist questions with a description containing a mobile number and the string "loans"? [duplicate]
As we are seeing a lot of spam, why can't we blacklist questions with a description containing a mobile number and the string "loans" combination on this platform?
- 6,664
-35
votes
3
answers
792
views
How about using GPT or some other LLMs to help for spam detection?
Example from https://askubuntu.com/questions/1475868/gold-rupee-loan-app-customer-carehelpline-number%ef%b8%8f-7250536107-7250536107
Prompt given to https://chat.openai.com/?model=text-davinci-002-...
- 17.6k
26
votes
2
answers
972
views
SE manipulation recruitment saga Pt. II
First, please read Pt. I of this story:
This guy tried to recruit me as a stooge for manipulating SE
I've decided to counter-fish our friend Mr. Thomas, and have sent him the following reply:
Hello ...
- 447k
62
votes
2
answers
1k
views
This guy tried to recruit me as a stooge for manipulating SE
A few days back, I got this email:
Dear Ein,
I see that you are an active member of multiple Stack Exchange
communities. We are looking for content creators. The task is very
simple and pays well. We ...
- 26.1k
26
votes
1
answer
733
views
How can we handle spam faster? [duplicate]
As of today, the Ask Ubuntu site was hit with a flood of spam. While I was trying to flag these posts, I was informed that I could only raise 16 flags a day. I would question this constraint.
Do we ...
- 329
29
votes
1
answer
205
views
Red-flagged question titles are no longer shown to moderators
Instead of the title, I just see "This question was marked as spam or rude or abusive and is therefore not shown":
While this is the correct behavior for non-moderators, moderators are ...
- 159k
-1
votes
1
answer
89
views
"This looks like spam" error message when attempting to ask a non-spam question on tor [duplicate]
I'm trying to ask in the "Tor Stack Exchange Q&A Site" about Signaled readiness to systemd... but always count my question as spam while it is not...
my question body : https://pastebin....
- 86.2k
6
votes
0
answers
186
views
Most of the spam I receive is on webapps.SE
I don't have statistics to backup my claims, but I hope you do.
I just flagged an answer as spam on webapps.SE. Most of the spam I reported are:
Posted as answers
On https://webapps.stackexchange....
- 15.4k
12
votes
1
answer
259
views
Why does deleting my own question tell me that I have flagged it as "spam or offensive content"?
It turned out that my question was asked as a misunderstanding. It now (after clarification) brings zero value to the community. So I have deleted it.
I was surprised to see this right after that:
...
- 7,418
111
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Don't use spam post as audits in the low quality review queue
Spam posts, without proper context, especially those tricky ones, can be extremely difficult to assess; and even when you successfully identify it as "spam" the review queue doesn't allow you to flag ...
- 140
28
votes
3
answers
297
views
Can we have an auto-flag for posts deleted by users as spam, rude or abusive?
I just came across, in normal browsing of the site I am a moderator on, another post from a drive-by user which had legitimately been deleted as "spam or rude or abusive".
In a way, that's great, ...
- 104k
25
votes
1
answer
209
views
Declining spam or rude/abusive flags doesn't trigger recalculation of a post's score
When a spam or rude/abusive flag is raised on a post, a downvote is automatically applied from the Community user. This downvote immediately affects the post's score upon the flag being raised.
When a ...
- 731
-31
votes
1
answer
301
views
How can I cheat the reputation system?
I have been a full stack web developer and have been using computers for most of my life.
I use these Stack Exchange websites a lot, to get answers, as they say, and indeed they are right!
I get ...
58
votes
2
answers
770
views
Automatically reject suggested edits where edit summary is an email address
Could we automatically reject a suggested edit if the edit summary is only an email address? We all know it is very common for spam bots to enter email address to the one-line field that is after a ...
- 3,784
98
votes
0
answers
452
views
Posts destroyed as spam should trigger a retroactive audit failure for previous "No Action Needed" votes
As a moderator on Stack Overflow, I regularly look through the review history of obvious spam that has lasted more than an hour or so on the site. I often find one or two reviewers who voted "No ...
CommunityBot
- 1
433
votes
9
answers
19k
views
Can a machine be taught to flag spam automatically?
TL;DR: We did it, so... yes.
What is this?
Charcoal is the organization behind the SmokeDetector bot and other nice things. This bot scans new posts across the entire network for spam posts and ...
CommunityBot
- 1
22
votes
3
answers
329
views
Blatantly off topic spam that discloses affiliation
Someone has a post up on SO right now advertising a "Microwave Dinner Set" (screenshot for people with less than 10k reputation on SO).
I flagged it as spam, but reconsidered the flag, since ...
- 32.7k
8
votes
1
answer
120
views
Does it matter if a post discloses the author's affiliation if it only exists to promote a product or service?
The definition of the spam flag is:
Exists only to promote a product or service, does not disclose the author's affiliation.
And it links to the site's /help/promotion page. Based on the tips ...
7
votes
2
answers
180
views
How to find posts closed as spam in the Stack Exchange Data Explorer (SEDE)?
I am looking at the Data Explorer and attempting to get a listing of tags flagged as spam (I'd like to use them to help build a spam identifier eventually, but that is not relevant to this question).
...
- 15.2k
4
votes
0
answers
65
views
Question flagged as spam and error on body [duplicate]
I am trying to post a question on Stack Overflow regarding a problem I found on my code, but when I try to post it, the site returns two errors, both not really clarifying what is wrong with the ...
- 6,675
70
votes
0
answers
672
views
Please moderate Facebook comments on the SO page
Not a complaint or a whine, but a polite request because Facebook won't do it.
I reported the comment above, which was posted from a fake account using your name to entice people to send them crypto ...
25
votes
4
answers
775
views
-100 rep penalty effectiveness for spam?
I quite doubt the effectiveness of the -100 penalty to spammers (per post) because I've never seen spammers with 6+ reputation, not even 100. So -100 makes hardly any difference from -10, -1k or -1M. ...
56
votes
2
answers
570
views
Don't age away spam/rude/abusive flags
Currently, spam flags and rude/abusive flags age away in 2 days if not acted upon. This doesn't really happen on active sites, but it does happen elsewhere. (For example, I have four aged-away spam ...
- 1,436
77
votes
4
answers
4k
views
Why don't we treat rubbish the same as spam?
Spam gets fairly heavily punished - 100 reputation penalty, if I recall correctly, and the content itself gets hidden in the revision history.
Now if we just have some rubbish:
...
- 1,964
11
votes
1
answer
391
views
Is it possible to blacklist a word, especially for unregistered users, in questions?
The problem
Since the 30th of August, Law.SE is suffering under a single user that does ask repeated questions over something they made up from thin air. The word "constiption[sic!]/constipt"...
11
votes
2
answers
416
views
Appropriate measures for repeatedly posting the same content across the network
The user https://stackoverflow.com/users/12923651/polcott is very excited about their "insight" about an error in the proof of the Halting problem, and so they would like to share it with ...
- 12.4k
2
votes
0
answers
55
views
Remove an account promoting escort services [duplicate]
I just rejected a spam edit on MSO from a new user promoting an escort service.
Looking at the user's profile here on MSE, it seems to have no purpose other than (spammingly?) promoting an escort ...
- 6,984
20
votes
0
answers
185
views
Podcast advertising by spammers?
In podcast episode #482 I was somewhat disturbed to hear an ad for turing.com
I don't particularly perceive them as a spammer, and actually don't have much of a perception of them as a company at all; ...
CommunityBot
- 1
28
votes
0
answers
303
views
Why can 1 rep users post so many answers so fast?
I just came across this answer (10k only) on Ask Ubuntu (image link). A new, one-rep user just posted thirteen "abusive" answers over fifteen minutes.
Another case: a user managed to post a ...
GlorfindelMod
- 248k
6
votes
0
answers
91
views
"This appears to be spam. If you think we've made an error, make a post in meta." The link to "meta" isn't clickable
In doing some testing for this post, I repeated the steps in How can I solve the 'Body cannot contain ""' error when trying to post? which gave the error:
However, if I left-click ...
- 21.6k
15
votes
1
answer
235
views
Under what conditions are 漢字 blocked?
I was surprised when I saw the question Chinese text isn't working on Stack Overflow. I've seen questions and answers with Chinese characters all over Stack Exchange (Skeptics, Islam, Politics, ...
- 21.6k
23
votes
3
answers
311
views
Obfuscate spam in page title as well
Not long ago I noticed a blessed change that is obfuscating question title and body when it's deleted after getting valid spam flags.
Question title becomes:
This question was marked as spam or ...
6
votes
0
answers
43
views
The "Tab Name" for Deleted Spam Questions still shows the Original Text [duplicate]
For questions deleted as spam or R/A, like this one, the question title (header) is replaced by the "System" with the following text:
This question was marked as spam or rude or abusive and ...
21
votes
2
answers
521
views
How to deal with an otherwise salvageable post with a spam link?
I'm coming across several posts (mostly questions) recently. They all come from new users. Those posts seem OK: they're on-topic and is only an edit away from a decent post for beginners to SE, except ...
