# What to do if you see Spam



## Drew (Apr 17, 2008)

I'm sorry I have to even post this up, but I just banned a spammer. He posted a thread at 12:36 selling bulk hard drives, and in the hour or so it took one of the mods to delete the thread, I see that three of you posted in the thread, one to use the ban smiley, one to use the wavey smiley, and one simply to say "in before the close." Meanwhile, someone left him a negative reputation. 

Now, keep in mind that this is with one hour turnaround on the part of your mod team - most photo places don't work that fast. 

Come on, guys, this ain't rocket science. If you see spam, you know the thread's going to be deleted pretty soon. Posting to yell at the guy, suggest we ban him, or (especially) saying dumb shit like "I'm just posting to sneak a post in before someone closes down this thread" isn't much better than spam itself. 

Meanwhile, in that hour, not one of you hit the "report this post" button on the bottom of the screen. In fact, we haven't had a single reported post since February 17th, yet this isn't the first spammer we've had since then. 

The nest time you see a spammer, if you think we need to be clued in, _*report the post.*_ Don't post stupid crap just for the hell of it, it just looks stupid and, since you're not saying anything meaningful, brings you down to the level of the guy polluting our forums trying to scam a few people. Shitty? Sure. Worse than just trying to run up your post count a little? Sure, but that doesn't make that form of spam any better. We have a report post functionality for a reason. Use it.


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## Groff (Apr 17, 2008)

Drew said:


> Meanwhile, in that hour, not one of you hit the "report this post" button on the bottom of the screen. In fact, we haven't had a single reported post since February 17th, yet this isn't the first spammer we've had since then.



Really???

That's odd... I clicked "Report post" and sent it off on all three threads the spammer posted today... 
That was the first thing I did. Perhaps something is broken?

I'm pretty sure one of the others in the theads mentioned he reported them as well.


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## Mr. S (Apr 17, 2008)

i think i do normally hit the report post button and write a silly comment, although i haven't seen any spam on this site for a while now except that PM spam thing where it wasn't possible to report the post so i alerted Leon via PM (who was the only mod online at the time) 

but i shall keep on the look out for any suspect threads and simply report it and abstain from the silly comments in the future


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## Drew (Apr 17, 2008)

Abstaining, in this one isolated instance, = sexytime.


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## D-EJ915 (Apr 17, 2008)

I saw some posts in the threads so I didn't report them figuring someone already had.


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## Stitch (Apr 17, 2008)

I always report posts!

But stopping us from posting silly shit would take some of the fun out of the forum. I mean, it'll get deleted anyway, so why not?


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## Drew (Apr 17, 2008)

Stitch said:


> I always report posts!
> 
> But stopping us from posting silly shit would take some of the fun out of the forum. I mean, it'll get deleted anyway, so why not?



Silly shit = ok in off topic. 

silly shit =/= ok everywhere else. 

We've sort of told you that a few times now, bro. Take the hint.


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## eleven59 (Apr 17, 2008)

To be fair, I think this kind of behavior is partially encouraged by the (hilarious) methods of dealing with spammers in the past, where mods would simply edit the post to be something funny, and add the spammer's info to the post. And I'd hardly say that all silliness is restricted to the off-topic forum, as if all other forums were 100% serious with no joking allowed, I'd leave the forum. 

Not criticizing, just pointing out some facts that I feel need to be addressed as there may have been relevant discussions that happened in the mod forum that none of us can see that would make this make a lot more sense.


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## Chris (Apr 18, 2008)

eleven59 said:


> To be fair, I think this kind of behavior is partially encouraged by the (hilarious) methods of dealing with spammers in the past, where mods would simply edit the post to be something funny, and add the spammer's info to the post.



To be fair, the mods can't do that anymore because of the nonsense in every other forum that it provokes. I ask people time, and time, and time again not to fuck around in the music forum and the same people do it anyway over, and over again.



> And I'd hardly say that all silliness is restricted to the off-topic forum, as if all other forums were 100% serious with no joking allowed, I'd leave the forum.



I like you aaron and I respect your opinion, but to be 100% straight with you, if you want to leave the forum that is entirely your call. Heavier moderation is necessary as the site gets busier, otherwise it all goes to shit. We try and find the balance between being forum nazis and having a good time, and as of late there is WAY too much shit in the music forum. It's not even "as of late", as I've been asking people to knock it off for months now.

There have been 619 moderator actions this month so far. That includes things like moving threads and changing titles, but a good 75% of it is deleting posts that are out of line, and the month isn't even half over.

If you're expecting the mods, or myself, to sway our opinions on how to run ss.org based off of "I'll leave" remarks, with all due respect you will be disappointed. This site caters to everyone, longtime members and new folks alike, and we make decisions with the best interests of everyone in mind. 



> Not criticizing, just pointing out some facts that I feel need to be addressed as there may have been relevant discussions that happened in the mod forum that none of us can see that would make this make a lot more sense.



Same here. I hope I've addressed your concerns, and if not you can always PM me.


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## Chris (Apr 18, 2008)

TheMissing said:


> Really???
> 
> That's odd... I clicked "Report post" and sent it off on all three threads the spammer posted today...
> That was the first thing I did. Perhaps something is broken?
> ...









It's working just fine.


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## ElRay (Apr 18, 2008)

Drew said:


> Meanwhile, in that hour, not one of you hit the "report this post" button on the bottom of the screen. In fact, we haven't had a single reported post since February 17th, yet this isn't the first spammer we've had since then.


Odd. I reported this on the 4th.

Ray

Edit: And just as a test, I reported it again at about 2:25AM CDT.


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## Groff (Apr 18, 2008)

Chris said:


> It's working just fine.



That's strange then.
Maybe my web broswer at work was having issues at the time?
I know I reported the posts.
Perhaps next time i'll report the post an PM a mod who's online at the time, just to be sure.

I don't know... I tried at least. 

Maybe I'll see if I can get IT to put Firefox on my computer at work


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## Abhorred (Apr 18, 2008)

ElRay said:


> Odd. I reported this on the 4th.
> 
> Ray
> 
> Edit: And just as a test, I reported it again at about 2:25AM CDT.



I reported this at some point around then, too.


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## eleven59 (Apr 18, 2008)

Chris said:


> To be fair, the mods can't do that anymore because of the nonsense in every other forum that it provokes. I ask people time, and time, and time again not to fuck around in the music forum and the same people do it anyway over, and over again.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



That all makes sense. And, to explain myself a bit, my "I'd leave" comment wasn't a threat or anything, it was moreso confusion, as I haven't noticed a lack of humour and entertainment on this forum. One of the reasons I love this forum is that there's a lot of useful information here, as well as everyone's a lot of fun to talk to and we don't take ourselves too seriously. Sure, the silliest stuff is in off-topic, but that doesn't mean I've never laughed when reading other forums here.


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## ElRay (May 16, 2008)

I just now reported this thread. Did the report make it through?

Ray


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## Rick (May 16, 2008)

I reported that one as well.


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## Drew (May 16, 2008)

Yes, it came through. In the process of dealing with the guy.


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