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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 01:26:27
Graz I know you know my views, but finding this forum, creating a message, bloating the site, just to report spam ....

http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=81961
http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=81962
http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=76934

spirit1
Cybernetic Yak Master

11752 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 04:05:11
in other words:
your bot has ego issues and wants to be a MOD, right?

_______________________________________________
Causing trouble since 1980
blog: http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/mladenp
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 04:31:21
Nah, I want a "report abuse" button ....

... http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=81650

EDIT: Like the "Report to moderator" feature these guys have (scroll to the very bottom example - you have to be logged in to get the link so you can't see it on their sites easily)

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?action=help

Kristen
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Merkin
Funky Drop Bear Fearing SQL Dude!

4970 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 07:00:39
You guys crack me up, maybe just stop replying to it ?


Damian
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Emerson
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Merkin
Funky Drop Bear Fearing SQL Dude!

4970 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 07:03:47
quote:
Originally posted by Kristen

Nah, I want a "report abuse" button ....



gee Kristen, I'm sorry I'm not quick enough at deleting spam for you, it's obviously a major inconvenience. With all the fame and fortune that comes with moderating this site it's easy to forget the little guy.

Damian
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Emerson
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 08:14:37
Sorry if my comments have been interpreted wrongly, I am certainly NOT expecting a fast spam-removal service.

To clarify (hopefully!):

I think the spam is not helpful. It dilutes the quality advice here, drives the wrong sort of Google traffic (probably doesn't matter, but someone is paying for bandwidth somewhere etc. etc.) and suggests to other would-be-spammers that they are in-with-a-chance by posting some junk here.

I think pure Spam threads should be deleted in their entirely. Deleting the content of the posts (and leaving whatever humorous or pi$$ed posts others have replied with) doesn't do anything for the genuine material on the site. But it does clog the system up - Index lists, "Active Topics", etc.

And I suppose the volume of spam will get worse over time.

But my real point is that a bunch of people see a Spam posting. I used to mail Graz, but obviously he is not the only one who could remove the Spam, assuming that the Mods decide it IS Spam. So I create, or add to, a posting here.

Others will ignore the post, or go through the motions of reporting it - and either find it already reported, or create a new report.

I make a conscious effort to spend time here to give something back to the community, on a subject which I can be a net giver, rather than receiver. I expect that is true of others too. The longer it takes to deal with spam, and the more chance that multiple people have also gone through the motions of reporting it a) take up some of my available time [not your problem as such] and b) detract from the joy of hanging out here.

I could ignore Spam, but if everyone does that it is unlikely to be removed. I think that would be a Bad Thing, as described above.

A "click here to report spam" would be a very quick action, for me to perform, and I suspect that many more of the regulars would use it as it is close-to-zero-time-to-use.

Edit: for the avoidance of doubt: whether you choose to do anything about the reported posts is entirely up to you guys. I would like to see spam gone, but that apart I am completely neutral about what you guys choose to Mod

Recording the TopicID would also allow a MODs report that provided click-and-link to the thread, which would be more time-saving than getting a Subscription Email to this thread, reading the post, following the link, discovering that the thread had already been dealt with by another Mod, and so on. And the report could be weighted according to the number of such reports. Maybe even the "Report abuse" link would only be displayed for users with > 100 posts, or whatever.

For a once-a-week-spam-problem it would be pretty pointless, for several a day more worthwhile. Of course spammers usually post in several places at once ...

I appreciate that I'm not the driver for what features should be available here, but I'd like to raise a couple of points:

1) The waste of my time annoys me, maybe others too, and either that annoyance will grow as the Spam level increases or everyone will stop reporting the Spam, the site quality will fall, the consequences are obvious.

2) We use Snitz on some of our sites, so I have some working knowledge of it. I'd be more than happy to have a go at writing a standalone ASP "target" page if that would help you guys at all.

I can't see anything on the Snitz site that helps in this regard (MODs to prevent Bot registration, but I reckon that's a bit removed from the issue), but I am seeing this functionality on other Forum [brand] sites. I could ask on the Snitz forum in case there is already something useful "in the wild"

Kristen
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graz
Chief SQLTeam Crack Dealer

4149 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 08:42:27
Kirsten,

I hear you on the "Report This Post" page. I'm not agreeing to do anything just yet -- but I do hear you.

There have been 9 spam reports in the last 30 days or roughly one every three days. There were about six in the three months prior to that. If they continue to be one every three days then we'll look at doing something. If it goes back down -- probably not.

I don't think there is a ready-made MOD for Snitz to do this but I'll certainly look into it when the time comes.

===============================================
Creating tomorrow's legacy systems today.
One crisis at a time.
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 09:04:35
Its probably me. I get annoyed at anything that distracts me from getting from Birth to Death in a straight line!

I'm happy to have a delve into Snitz and see whether there appears to be an easy route for this, (without MOD'ing the beast, which I know is a pain when trying to rollout a new Snitz version - not that there have been many of those in the last two years ...)

Kristen
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graz
Chief SQLTeam Crack Dealer

4149 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 09:36:00
If you want to take a look that's fine. Keep in mind that I am very, very, very hesitant to modify Snitz. I don't make any promises to implement anything even if you think it's a great solution.

===============================================
Creating tomorrow's legacy systems today.
One crisis at a time.
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 17:22:39
"Keep in mind that I am very, very, very hesitant to modify Snitz."

I know the reasons why, and I've been there and got the T-shirt, so I completely understand.

"I don't make any promises to implement anything even if you think it's a great solution."

In that case I will be well flattered if a) I can build a cool solution and b) you decide to adopt it.

Perhaps I'll post it as an Article so I get a Prize too

Kristen
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Merkin
Funky Drop Bear Fearing SQL Dude!

4970 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-12 : 19:25:29
Sorry guys, I'd had a long day. Didn't mean to be that snappy



Damian
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Emerson
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-23 : 12:22:06
Took longer than it should have done for Step One, sorry.

I thought I'd research any existing MODs. I couldn't remember my login details @ Snitz, and their "Lost password" stuff requires you know BOTH your UserID and EMail. Well that's like perm 10 from 1,00,000 for me!. Anyway sorted that now, I asked the question and someone suggested the MOD below - which may be hard-as-hell to implement, or not, but recording here for completeness whilst I delve some more.

Kristen

http://www.snitzbitz.com/mods/details.asp?Version=All&mid=216

"Complaint Manager Mod is designed for Snitz board owners who wants their users report illegal, spam, unapproperiate posts to moderators of their boards. This mod is complete remake of previous Report to Moderator mod for earlier Snitz versions.

After install your moderators and admins will see "Complaints" link to complaintmanager.asp and on header, they will see how many reports from users they have in their access areas. Administrators can delete older Solved Tickets, however moderators and administrators can change status of a complaint ticket to 'unsolved' "
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-23 : 12:26:57
P.S. the Topic I created at Snitz, for reference, is:

http://forum.snitz.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64599

Kristen
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Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-04-23 : 13:00:12
I downloaded it to have a look. I've only looked at the ReadMe so far, the installation is Level 2 (1=East, 10=Hard) and looking at the instructions it appears straightforward - about 10 separate single-line type edits.

I will have a go installing it here and see what sort of Hash I can make of it!

Kristen
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