15 replies to this topic

[Rif]

I don't profess to know the technical aspects of moderating the forum, but I implore you, both regular and weekend moderators, if possible to please remove the "reported" post along with the spam post. Leaving the "reported" post causes tremendous confusion on the forum, and it causes the topic to be "bumped" to the top of forum lists, which in turn re-energizes ancient and sometimes obsolete topics.

Perhaps encouraging people to do a "reported" post is the wrong way to deal with the issue. While it does let everyone know that a spam post has already been reported, it also bumps the topic, and it creates confusion for subsequent readers. Maybe people should be encouraged to merely use the "Report Post" option without adding a "reported" post of their own, but that has its drawbacks too.

Some people have taken to quoting the spam post in their reported post, but that makes the situation worse if it is not also deleted. Other people have taken to referring to the offending post by post number, but that also creates confusion when the numbers change after the spam post is deleted.

I wonder if including the spammers name in the reported post would work better, like "reported spam post by XXXXXXX". Even then, those reported posts need to be deleted, but at least there would be less confusion. I don't know if this makes sense, but I do know that the current process is creating some confusion and ill will.

Overall, I think you all are doing a great job in dealing with a frustrating issue, and I thank you for it. I'm just hoping for an even better way of dealing with this.

[Jack Mayer]

We are trying to remove the subsequent reported posts as well. I went back thru this morning and removed a bunch of them.

In fact, it does NO GOOD to "report" a post, since the only deletions of spam in practice are by the "weekend" moderators, and we delete all during the week, not just on weekends. "Reporting" the post does no good since we do not get that report. It is up to us to "find" the spam, and we usually do, since I for one, use the "View New" when looking at the forum, and thus see any spam. Linda, Kirk and Stan do the same, as far as I know.

Again, "reporting" will not help remove the spam or bring it to anyones attention other than Greg - and he does not regularly delete the posts - the weekend moderators do.

[Paul Stough]

Thanks, Jack, for the reply. It will be good for future reference.

Paul

[Rif]

Thanks for that information, Jack. So what you are saying is that everyone should stop reporting the spam, and stop posting "reported" posts. In other words, we should ignore the spam and trust that a weekend moderator will deal with it. I can live with that. What does it take to spread the word?

Edited by Rif, 18 January 2012 - 10:45 AM.

[Jack Mayer]

Hey, don't go by what I say....I have no authority to make any "rules" here. It was just an observation. But one I think is accurate. Maybe the other WE moderators will comment???

[Stanley P. Miller]

The reported posts were to try to keep the load down on the forumadmin from multiple spam posting reports, they aren't being used for that by the weekend ad zappers since we never see them as was mentioned. I'd leave it up to the forumadmin to make that call and post an announcement about it. Contacting them might get the process started.

I zap the spam I see and any reported or other posts quoting it to keep the spammers getting direct or indirect publicity. I can start zapping plain reported posts too if that makes sense to most folks and the forumadmin.

After a few more folks comment here an e-mail alert on the topic to the forumadmin would probably be a good thing, maybe Thursday so it doesn't get lost in the usual Friday crunch.

[Bill B]

Just a thought - If I report a spam - and I have been - maybe by deleting my spam report might set a notch in my Warn meter - I did have a post that was deleted although it was the reporting of the SPAM. The software might say -- Bill B had 2 deleted posts, 1 notch in the old 'Warn Meter", 5 deletes and 2 notchs (get after this guy), so 5-7 Spam reports and I am in a time out.



Whether it works this way or not, conjecture on my part. I have been the object of the misterious "reported" under someone and them asking me why I reported them. --- Sorry guy, not you, the Spam that was between us. What Spam? I don't see anything!!



I do like the delete the spam and the reported but not if it is going to it the Warn Meter LOL

[Dutch_12078]

Unless something has changed with the latest version of IP.Board, the "Warning Meter" is a manual admin setting. The number of deleted posts alone would have no bearing on it.

[BrianT]

It kinda sounds like the "Report" button is serving in a less than needed capacity. Apparently, pressing the "Report" button doesn't get the message to the moderators at all, which would seem like the appropriate place. (?)

Wouldn't it be more practical if that button notified the moderators who could fix the spammer post haste? I don't know if that may be as simple as adding a few people onto a notification list or whether it's more complicated.

??

Brian

[Bill B]

OK Dutch - as I said, that was just conjecture. I had / have no idea if it worked that way.

[sandsys]

OK. I'll stop reporting spam and let you guys do your thing. I also don't like the "reported" messages not being deleted so, if just not reporting them works, that's great!

Linda Sand

[Stanley P. Miller]

The IP Board software is less than flexible in many respects (does the forum block the term sucks?) and getting it to do something other than the default with reported post messages will probably prove to be difficult to impossible. The forumadmin really does need to see some of the reports where a user is not a spammer but is violating the standards or situations they or the club management need to look into. Then too I'm pretty sure the rest of the ad zappers do not want to see that type of report.

Now if they could come up with a "report as Spam" button that could send the ad zapping crew a group mail that would be very cool. We'd be competing with each other to get to it first and zap it. Then I flag the poster as a spammer, locking their account until it is reviewed and probably deleted by the forumadmin. I usually take the time to give the spammer a bad WOT rating while I'm at it, gotta make sure they feel unwelcome here as well as it being unprofitable.

I'm pretty sure the warning setting is not tied into anything else so I'd not worry about it. If you do get a warning the forumadmin almost always sends along a note via e-mail or PM letting you know why.

----

Speaking of the WOT browser extension, if anyone is using WOT the forums here could use a few more ratings to get them to green status. They are showing a "?" now as they have too few ratings.

[GrayEagle]

I understand the confusion, which this thread has gone a long way in correcting. To me it is a minor annoyance and nothing more. So while I would be happy to see a solution, it just doesn't seem like that big a deal.

[Jack Mayer]

Personally, I don't want any more email. I get 50+ a day that are "real" mail now. Having dozens of emails reporting spam is not going to get me to zap them. If I am on the forum I zap them, if not, I would not log in to just do that - since I likely would be otherwise involved. I assume other WEMs would get them. (There is your acronym of the day - WEM. Week End Monitor)

[BRDof3]

I belong to a camping/Disney board that was started by a friend of mine. One of the things they did to help with self-moderation was to add buttons to each post, a "plus" and a "minus." If you want to give the poster kudos, you hit the "plus" button. If you feel that it is spam, or otherwise inappropriate, you hit the "minus" button. If a post receives 5 "minus" votes, it is automatically removed from view. That helps the board members get rid of the spam posts, without the mods/admins feeling like they have to babysit and look over shoulders all the time.

Edited by BRDof3, 18 January 2012 - 07:19 PM.

[Budd]

I usually click the Report button but also, go to that Member's profile page and report the MEMBER. Very few real SPAMS are generated by people with a membership that is more than a day or two old so a search for that member ID will take anyone directly to all of their SPAMS in one fell swoop.

Yes,I agree, there should be some sort of mechanism in the forum platform to identify spammers to designated moderators, be it emails, a private forum where they are noted by the system but removed by the moderator when all the spams are eliminated. This is a simple TASK list approach but maybe that is too much to ask of a glorified bulletin board system such as this?