Will you help fight spam on mahalo? Can a staff member give insight on what to look for in spam?

Great question. I am not staff but do have some staff like permissions here so if you find anything spammy send me the urls via direct question and I will take care of it on the double. I hate seeing spam push real questions as much as you do.

Some things to look for in spam detecting. ~~ like recent postings anything that directly asks us to go to another site. Could be to buy handbags or read the posters article on a recent news item.I.

E "what are some great handbags? This guy has just been obvious and is posting a url _as_ the question. I have even seen a poster looking to sell their personal Avon website here.Spam.

~~ Be very suspicious Many spammers have been sneaky recently and one user will post a "where do I download "blah blah blah" for free?" and their partner will post the spam links as an answer. Poof! Best answer selected and the spam module is complete.

We can stop this in its tracks by answering the question with a safe non spam method (if there is one) answer forcing the poster to now make a decision... do I violate tos and pick the spam answer or let this one go to voting. .. where importantly we have to be able to spot the spam answer and simply not vote for it... reporting it along the way asking for it to be removed. This trick has been going on a lot recently.

~~ spy view Watching spy view helps see spam as it comes in and will get it off the site faster. Use the spy view to detect and report as the spam comes in. We can also see here the questions the get answered as soon as they are asked usually in a bunch or 3/5 and the asker will select best answer right away.

Report these to staff and send me the links via direct question. On spy we can stay on the cutting edge and get to the spam before it gets to us. ~~ reporting When reporting to staff be sure to be very descriptive in the report.

Use this opportunity to say "Everything this user posts is spam. Please check the entire profile". A good report will get them banned by IP address and they will have to start again with a new one.

They will start again but the bump in the road will slow the down a bit and hopefully ad a measure of frustration to the process if it happens to them more than a few times. Corey does not see many of the spam postings we do. We have to help him see what we do and be his eyes.

We should report, report, report every single suspicious posting and ask other to do so as well. He will get as annoyed with the spammer as we do and help out by removing the postings and investigating the users. Hopefully a staff member sees this question today and gives us a great staff perspective on the issue of spam because a good description of what spam is from a staff member will go a lot farther than mine will with a larger group of users.

I'm on in the US night time too and there does seem to be a lot come through at that point. Ones where there are obvious URLs just posted as an answer not even related to the question are annoying to me. I report them but wonder how long it takes for them to go away.

Great Question. Mahalo is Spam. Call it Adsense, call it questions designed to bring attention to peoples own pages, call it questions asked to bring attention (to questions) for adsense.

You are a purple belt, so you already know this. So as to your question fight spam on mahalo. Think about it, Mahalo is spam.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.