Forum Feedback How to combat spam on TE?

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^^Do we have section mods for each section? When's the next moderator recruitment drive's happening - I'm willing to volunteer for it whenever that happens! I'm fed up of reporting posts time and again - I'd rather take them to task myself!
Like Sorcy said there's been a sudden infestation of TDF members here - we do not have a problem since most of us have migrated from some forum to this place but we have a different set of rules and we're all bound to abide by them.

I mean look at this intro thread - it's his first thread and it's nothing less than a chat box!
 
Gannu said:
^^Do we have section mods for each section?
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We do, but I feel that majority of people are exploiting the infraction system. Rather follow the 3 strike system- public/PM informal warning, formal warning that will be reflected on the profile and it will have a permanent record and then ban. If mods feel they some people are pushing their luck, ban them for a week's time rather than following the 3-strike system. Emphasize the point after official warning that breaking any rules after giving a formal warning will result to a ban, of which the ban period will be decided based on the member and his actions. Still can't understand- permanent ban! Seeing the knowledge that is offered on this forum, I seriously doubt they will take chances.

Gannu said:
I mean look at this intro thread - it's his first thread and it's nothing less than a chat box!
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I say we dump the introduction section. Or else put the introduction section as a subforum under the general section or else put up an introduction thread under the general section and be done with. Every month that subsection/thread will be purged and cleaned.
 
Its already under "The Lounge". That means nothing posted there counts. That, GT and other section in lounge are mostly non technical (except maybe auto) and does not contribute anything to TE. Its just there for new members to introduce themselves.

Anyway, coming to the point of mods.

Even for section mods, it will be difficult to go through all individual posts. Specially in traffic heavy sections. And specially posts on middle pages in long thread.
 
We do not want to impose the kind of moderation that happens in TBHP forums - we have not escalated to such insane levels as yet. If newbies don't go by the rules, we BAN them for a week or 10 days! Not a measly infraction. Those're just my 2 cents.
 
Why do mods have to go through individual posts? People still do use the "report post" button right? Following this tactic would encourage few/many people to start reporting. Swift action will encourage people to report it.

And if the moderators are reading something and found something nuisance, take the instant action rather than waiting for a report. I don't know if TE is following this (most likely they are when/if they read a thread), but they don't, do it!
 
^For a sensible reason, it makes sense to bump an old thread and post it than make a new thread and make redundant ones henceforth. Not otherwise.

I'd myself reported countless threads in the Gaming Section for each game say AC2, COD: MW2, you name it! Finally some wise mod decided to club all the similar threads.
 
Shripad said:
This was tried, and it was a disaster. It hurt both market subdomain and forums during the short period this was tried.
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Good, as i think the way its currently is perfect :)
Shripad said:
Like I said, the stupid posts are not because of market. Its the current generation of ****** social networking addicts bringing their bad habits over to FORUM, add to that people who are just trolling for the sake of it, and nutjobs who are just amusing themselves.

Forum is a forum. People will come and leave, new people will come, and out of 100 new, hardly 10 odd will actually contribute anything to the community. Thats always the case with any growing forum and community.
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This is pretty much my opinion on the topic as well.

Why did this topic come up in the first place, a new influx of members. Has this not happened before, course it has but nothing more could be done.

Some forums tend to prohibit one liners and discretion is upto the mods whether they think the post adds or detracts from the thread. Getting this right would be quite difficult to achieve in practice tho.

Maybe one should try to measure the problem before deciding there actually is one.

Can a forum tool be written that looks at one liners and gives a list of all members along with number of such posts. Then you can easily spot who's spamming and who is not.

Say if the last 10 posts were nothing but one liners then there is reason to think it is spam. But if its once in a way here & there its not and passes. Serial one line posts are bad, one in ten might not be :)

The tool should indicate length of time between one liners in the last x posts to be of any use.
 
As Shripad has rightly put it it'll be difficult to ensure quality when the source of info is as varied as a forum's user base. However there could be other means.

Has anyone seen MSDN forums? There is a link to mark a post as answer. We can also have something similar, with the posts marked as answers coming to the top and the ones which are less imporant to the topic can be left lying behind.
 
sarang said:
Has anyone seen MSDN forums? There is a link to mark a post as answer. We can also have something similar, with the posts marked as answers coming to the top and the ones which are less imporant to the topic can be left lying behind.
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This might work when there is a query but in a general discussion it might not as it disrupts the flow. What if a better answer shows up in the future ?

I would think the OP would designate the most helpful post but would they be around later to change it.
 
How about using "Tag this post" method that linuxquestions.org uses. (forum is based on vBulletin too)

example: Help please - LinuxQuestions.org

Let the mods or select members tag all the post that are qualified as spam with predefined tag like spam or junk. and run a cleaner that removes all the posts that are tagged as spam.

Atleast this will reduce the amount of spam
 
@blr_p: Yeah mate, missed that point. Can we let an TS classify the thread as a query or discussion thread? And keep voting buttons on each post so that members can poll up/down the post? (Self polling not allowed of cource :))
 
Here is my opinion guys :-

I think we should increase the moderation.

See we all know that we have 2 section mods for all sections. Lets take an example of CPU and MOBO section. Since we all know that it is really difficult for 2 mods to go through all the posts in that section then guys this is the time to grow the size of moderators. Say for example lets make that to 10 for that(I know it is hard but very effective too). Now every mod of that section should opt for the threads which he will look after (something like subscribed threads). Now that particular mod needs to look after that few threads only which i think is possible. And now he can go through each and every posts. Any new thread in that section which is unowned by any mod should be separately highlighted so that mods of that section can take initiative to opt for that one. I know that mods need to do too much work at starting but later on everything will go like charm.

Just my 2 cents. (Even I'm ready to do such work to save my forum)
 
I guess all of us could help by reporting posts that you feel don't serve any purpose.

I keep checking for new posts every few hours and i guess there are a few others too who are active for most part of the day, who could help.

@greenie : thats a nice suggestion, but why not just report the post instead of groan ?
 
^I second that ,if anytime we come across a spam or unnecessary post we should help the moderators by reporting it . I always do that , especially with posts typed in sms lingo and a dozen similes .Just too irritating.

If we all contribute by reporting such post ,I am sure things will change. We don't really need more moderators as such we all should make ourselves feel like a Junior mod without the tag and make a difference .:)
 
Some suggestions:

1. Recruit more staff if needed.

2. Do not disable the minimum posts required for access to the market. This will result in more spam in the market and it will also allow just anybody to register and sell stuff without any initial activity. Deals can also go bad in such a case.

3. Existing mods and older members should proactively start reporting spam and stupid posts. Strict action should be taken on reported posts and people should be given warnings and banned if needed. Its high time TE staff became strict like the mods on other forums such as XS.

4. Limit the maximum number of replies in birthdays and introduction threads if possible (as someone already mentioned earlier)

This is what I could think of.
 
I was thinking, that we should probably have something like a wall of shame or something..

anyone gets an infraction, you get bumped into said list. People tend to not repeat mistakes for which they have been chastised in public.
 
Also, is a negative reputation system possible? And mods can keep a check on negatively rated members.
 
thexfactor said:
@greenie : thats a nice suggestion, but why not just report the post instead of groan ?
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reporting each and every post causes excess work for the mods. Plus you really dont want to report each and every trivial post. And it makes it personal

On the other hand, clicking to groan on a post is rather easy, and if a member accumulates sufficient groans from several members, then it will be easier for mods to look into that instead of individual complaints
 
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