[Update] Deal with Spammers

[Rotasu]

So, we should not comment on posts that may be spam?

Spam seems to come in two flavors:

[list=1]
[*]Mass drive-by spam which appears on many threads. If you see this, then just report it once, and don't respond. We'll clean it up using the "ban hammer" and delete every post the spammer ever made.

Yes please only report it once. I logged on after a few hours to see 35 notificationa regarding the spam attack the other day and let me say it is a huge pain in the neck trying to clear all those whilst using the site on my mobile. I could mark them all as read but then I might have missed something that was a different spammer or a report for an inflammtory message or something. So please just the once!

Opps. So if they post in multiple threads, you want us to just go to one of the posts and report? Not every single one? XP Srry, Rhian lol. I might have been most of those 35 notifications XD

[rdearman]

Opps. So if they post in multiple threads, you want us to just go to one of the posts and report? Not every single one? XP Srry, Rhian lol. I might have been most of those 35 notifications XD

For duplicates, just report one of them. The reason is the moderators can ban the spammer and remove all their posts at once with one of the tools we've installed.

[Serpent]

It might be helpful to point out "the user has posted the same message in various threads" in the comment to your report

[Rotasu]

But don't feel obligated—it's totally OK to just report people who only signed up to tell us about ridiculous and worthless courses or apps.

What about people coming to post a link to their youtube channel?

[Bluepaint]

Yes please only report it once. I logged on after a few hours to see 35 notifications regarding the spam attack the other day and let me say it is a huge pain in the neck trying to clear all those whilst using the site on my mobile. I could mark them all as read but then I might have missed something that was a different spammer or a report for an inflammtory message or something. So please just the once!

Opps. So if they post in multiple threads, you want us to just go to one of the posts and report? Not every single one? XP Srry, Rhian lol. I might have been most of those 35 notifications XD

Yep, just one report. Ban Hammer let's us clear up all the spam posts with a few clicks. One thing I've noticed is that it doesn't apply to quotes, eg the other day someone quoted the spam post and pretty much told them where to go. The result is the spam links are still in that quote but all the original posts have been removed thanks to Ban Hammer. I know it's tempting but try not to respond to the spammers either.

[Bluepaint]

But don't feel obligated—it's totally OK to just report people who only signed up to tell us about ridiculous and worthless courses or apps.

What about people coming to post a link to their youtube channel?

If it isn't language-related, report it and say so and we'll delete it. If it is to do with languages then we might or might not delete it. Feel free to reply though because if they're going to say "Hey I'm great, here's my video on how to be like me" then they should be open to critical evaluation and a bit of peer reviewing

[Bluepaint]

A good example at the moment is Keys, who was a member of HTLAL (as Kees) for quite a while, has openly stated their affiliation and is not charging for the product. They are open to people reviewing their product, are trying to improve it through user feedback and provide technical support about their product. That kind of thing we're cool with.

[tomgosse]

Here is the kind of post that confuses me: tertrih. First time poster, no introduction, just promoting a link to his you tube channel. I did not report it, but I did send him a private message reminding him of the self-promotion policy. I tried to be polite. If I'm out of bounds doing that, please let me know.

The video is not selling anything, but has a link in it's comments to a Facebook page that does have some items for sale. I have no idea what the purpose of the video is. His French accent is worse than mine. A quick Google search on his name indicates he is a developer of a conlang.

I apologize if I'm making this topic more confused than it should be. I may be falling into the, "What about this?," trap.

[Rotasu]

Here is the kind of post that confuses me: tertrih. First time poster, no introduction, just promoting a link to his you tube channel. I did not report it, but I did send him a private message reminding him of the self-promotion policy. I tried to be polite. If I'm out of bounds doing that, please let me know.

The video is not selling anything, but has a link in it's comments to a facebook page that does have some items for sale. I have no idea what the purpose of the video is. His French accent is worse than mine. A quick Google search on his name indicates he is a developer of a conlang.

I appoligize if I'm making this topic more confused than it should be. I may be falling into the, "What about this?," trap.

Yea that's why I asked about youtube channels. Saw his post and didn't know if that counted as spam xD

[Serpent]

That's awkward.. the video does have a link to his store, but he sells some nice geeky shirts. In fact I'd think most members would be more interested in the shirts than the presumably basic videos. And the title is definitely arrogant. IDK, I'll let someone else decide. It's definitely bad that he missed the guidelines about contacting mods.

Generally it's not a problem if you report a message which may or may not be spam. Just preferably point out that you're not sure