Reporting Spam

[Brandon Martus]

Ryan Albright (1083) did a good thing earlier today, and I think it's something that everybody should try to do. When you report an obvious spam post, reply to it with 'Reported' or something. So that way, when the moderators get to their e-mail .. they have 1-2 reported posts e-mails, and not 25. It saves us all some time, keeps the e-maill server less busy, and is generally easier to deal with -- so I like it.

Thanks Ryan.

[Amanda Morrison]

Thank you Ryan!

When I came back from IRI, my inbox was filled with reported post emails. This really helps cut down. Great idea!

[sanddrag]

I think the regular mods do a great job. But maybe something like a few supplimentary or auxiliary mods wouldn't be a bad idea, for times when the regular ones are away. There's alot of members like Matt Krass who come around here really often and even into the late late hours of the nite, who would make good auxiliary mods imho.

[Ryan M.]

Good job, Ryan. I've often not reported spam just because I figure someone else already has.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by sanddrag

I think the regular mods do a great job. But maybe something like a few supplimentary or auxiliary mods wouldn't be a bad idea, for times when the regular ones are away. There's alot of members like Matt Krass who come around here really often and even into the late late hours of the nite, who would make good auxiliary mods imho.

There were a good number of mods that weren't at IRI this year.

During Nats, there's generally almost zero mods at home, but since there's hardly any activity on the boards during nats, it's probably not too big an issue.

[Josh Hambright]

During Nats this year, there were mainly 3 or 4 of us holding down the fort and we were fine.

I have rarely seen any instances where there wasn't a MOD around that could take care of a problem before it really became disruptive. Granted seeing 5 messages at the top of chitchat that are clearly spam is annoying, and granted if they are posted at 3am it might be entirely possible that nobody will delete them until 6 or 7 am, but how many people are on the forums at those times?

There are only a handful of times when i can remember there bieng any serious need for mods other then spam, and during those times, with reported posts, I saw moderators swarming into action to take care of the problem, with lots of PM's and discussion in other places going on to deal with the problem.


But yes, the 'reported' idea is great. Nothing worse then an email box full of reported messages for the same post.

[Brandon Martus]

I won't be adding any more moderators at the moment. The coaches are still working on the final rule changes, and I am going to ask that they put together some kind of criteria on how/when to add a moderator. Asking/volunteering, nominating, etc., won't have any impact on whether or not they will be added as moderators.

[ahecht]

The only problem I see with this is that it will bring spam topics back to the top of the portal. I know it would take quite a bit of rewriting, and Brandon is a busy guy, but I think a better long-term solution would be for the board to only allow each post to be reported once and then disabling the function.

[Amanda Morrison]

Originally Posted by ahecht

The only problem I see with this is that it will bring spam topics back to the top of the portal. I know it would take quite a bit of rewriting, and Brandon is a busy guy, but I think a better long-term solution would be for the board to only allow each post to be reported once and then disabling the function.

Actually, it seems as though it's been working fine so far. (It's certainly better than a post being reported 20 times.) There's enough moderators on the forum at almost any given time to where reported posts and spam don't last very long at all. For the two minutes it gets bumped back up the portal, it's not a big deal considering it is deleted shortly thereafter.

This helps cut down significantly on mod emails, as well as letting other users know that it's being taken care of.