Sphinn - Another Sphinn Spam Rant

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Sphinn It!

Another Sphinn Spam Rant

Went Hot: March 31, 2008 - 9:04 am
Posted By: theGypsy 198 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://piloseo.com)
Category: Sphinn Zone

Pilo - I am a fan of Sphinn and generally find a bunch of good information and discussion there. Lately though I have noticed increasingly more SPAM submissions there. If I see Spam I report it right away and I hope others do the same. Unfortunately the problem seems to be getting worse though. I like to check in on Sphinn early in the morning and now it seems that I am trudging through more Spam than real posts. This is a problem. Sometimes the Spam is cleaned up quickly but far too often it stays alive for too long.

21 Comments

Who Desphunn This (0)

Comments

from g1smd 198 days ago #

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It takes just five users to push the spam button for the post to disappear.

With the amount of people that visit the site daily, I am guessing that most spam should be disappearing in under half an hour...

If it isn't, then it's because people can't be bothered to help out fix the problem.

from mpilatow 198 days ago #

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Yeah, I think the problem is that people ignore it instead of reporting it. I know that whenver I see Spam I report it immediatly. I also think that the mods could be a bit more active when they see a Spam report. In the end it is up to all of us to keep it clean and we need to work together to do that.

from BrentCsutoras 198 days ago #

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I removed about 8 spam submissions and banned 4 users last night alone. Give me time man... :)

from mpilatow 198 days ago #

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Haha. I am not trying to indict anyone. I just get annoyed when I see so much spam here and it has been getting worse. I am not trying blame anyone except the spammers but I want to start a dialog to see if there are some additional spam protection options that could be implemented.
Keep up the good work and I will keep sending the reports to you.

from BrentCsutoras 198 days ago #

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I actually just looked at the log for this morning alone. A ton of spam was removed and spammers killed.

There is a lot of work done to remove the spam but if you are noticing it is getting worse it is only because Sphinn is growing more and more popular and visible.

Keep on reporting cause the spam report, even just 1, is a quick draw for my eye to check it out further.

from mpilatow 198 days ago #

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Thanks Brent. Yeah, I am sure as Sphinn becomes more popular it will face more and more spamming.

from theGypsy 198 days ago #

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I have a request.... when I report spam... toss the character limit. For me simply clicking it is enough... I'd rather just put 'SPAM' than typing why I think it is... :0)

Beyond that, spam is a sign of popularity no? Should be a metric for crying out loud.

from g1smd 197 days ago #

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*** I also think that the mods could be a bit more active when they see a Spam report. ***

If five people click on the "Report as Spam" link just below the post text, the spam disappears automatically.

See that line of text...?

Discuss -- Save -- Desphinn -- Report as Spam

from DazzlinDonna 197 days ago #

Votes: 2 | Vote:

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If you click Report As Spam (not desphinn), you don't have to type ANYTHING. It's just one simple click. That's it. And that's the one to use for real spam.

from cre8pc 197 days ago #

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I have a feeling that most people have no idea how much spam comes into sites like this one. I know from my own forums that we have to have 24/7 coverage, and often minute by minute we're killing posts or disabling spammers.

There is REALLY a high volume. Makes for a ton of work for owners of sites like this one. Members who can hit the "spam" link are surely appreciated here :)

from mpilatow 197 days ago #

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g1smd, please don't take this as an attack on the anyone here. We should all be in this together and it comes down to everyone doing their part. I am confident that a huge part of the spam issue is that many members simply ignore it, which needs to change. However, when I see the same spam post here for more than 24 hours it gets pretty irritating. If I could report things more than once (wait, can I do that) I would and I am trying to call out all Sphinners to report Spam when they see it. I want this to continue being a quality resource for SEO/SEM and if everyone in this community works together it can.

from theGypsy 197 days ago #

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Maybe I been smokin the whacky a bunch, but a while ago I remember a prompt with the spam button and a char limit... if I am wrong then I am.... either way I see it as an opinion not an attack..maybe more folks including myself need to be more diligent. Either way, the site's popularity, member laziness, or understaffing; the spam is on the rise :0)

from Jill 197 days ago #

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5 spam reports is a lot. I should think 2 or 3 would be enough to be sure it's spam.

from evilgreenmonkey 197 days ago #

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The "Report As Spam" link should not prompt for a reason, it simply sticks the post into an alert queue for moderators. The number of Spam reports before a post gets taken down should now have been reduced from 5 to 3 (or it's in the process of getting rolled out).

As previous commenters noted - if you don't like spam, hit the spam button on them. We do have some mods on different time-zones although we can't guarantee 24/7 instant response. If something has slipped past us, please feel free to notify us via the contact form.

We will continue to expand our moderator team as the site grows, although social networking sites will never be 100% spam free unless every single submission requires manual approval before going live (and even then, our definition of spam may be different to yours).

from iBrian 196 days ago #

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Just tried the Report button on a random new post (sorry, couldn't find any outright spam - sorry copyblogger!). Process seemed to run fine without having to comment, so hopefully I'll be encouraged to use it properly.

from graywolf 196 days ago #

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Sometimes the sheer volume is astounding, quite often I'll run through the last few hours in whats new and by the time I'm done another half dozen pop through

from semanjoe 196 days ago #

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I posted a 'web2.0 consulting' youtube video last week that got flagged up as SPAM within 5 minutes. I was impressed by the turnaround, although IMO it wasn't spam - just light humour that some may have found funny. It got boring after about 20 secs, so maybe it was kinda stupid but not spammy!

from yourseomentor 196 days ago #

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Here is what I believe is part of the issue. Go to SocialMarker.com and you will see that they have added Sphinn to their list of Social Bookmarking sites. I believe that people are just putting junk in Sphinn.com from this site. Just an observation.

from seanmag 196 days ago #

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@ boomclicks - Wow! Comment spamming a post about Sphinn spam. How novel.

from evilgreenmonkey 195 days ago #

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Admin Note: Comments by boomclick removed.

@yourseomentor: We've already created a solution for deterring mass-submission tools and it should roll out shortly.

from werebu 194 days ago #

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Wait a minute, you are saying that in theory, somebody could open 5 phony accounts and then "delete" legit posts marking them as spam?

Or do you manually delete such posts?

Sasha T.