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Fight Sphinn Spam: Win Cash And Search College Course w Kalena!
Went Hot: May 2, 2008 - 11:24 am
Posted By: Gab 68 days ago
Topic Type: Discussion
Category: Sphinn Zone
It'll be implemented/tested by you and Sphinn's staff (assuming Sphinn's great staff think it's worth trying). The most voted on ideas below will be considered for testing, and then the idea that cuts the percentage of spam by the greatest amount (over a week, say) takes the cash.
If you care about Sphinn and want to add/contribute your own prize (cough SEOmoz/Book/Ninja Training...) and or cash, that would obviously be welcome.
UPDATE: Kalena Jordan and Search Engine College have offered a free course to the tune of $295 to the winner!
@ Sphinn staff/mods: Please don't take this personally. I know you all do a lot to keep Sphinn spam free (and I really appreciate it!), but obviously the captcha or whatever is currently in place has been cracked. Also, if you're not willing/can't implement ideas submitted, please kill this discussion post/thread.
23 Comments
Comments
Getting people to actually hit the "report as spam" would help, I saw some today that was over 2 hours old, if it can't get 3-5 clicks or whatever figure the powers that be have come up with in two hours, something is wrong. If it takes a mod to remove it (which I didn't think was the case) then they should get some mods that are willing to pay more attention, I don't know what it takes to get within the vested circle but maybe some people who have time to admin the site should be given a chance.
Gab, appreciate the concern and will look at the ideas with interest. But I'm with JohnWeb -- it only takes three spam report clicks to kill things of the page and kick it to the mods to review. I'd just appreciate people doing that when the stuff does get past the mods. Though we do kill an awful lot...
yeah, ditto.... I am here as much as anyone (awaiting my intervention) and have become trigger happy with the spam button. Increased spam means we're popular (hee hee) and folks should be able to deal with it...
2c
Pressing the spam report button at Sphinn is just like reporting paid links through Google Webmaster Tools. If more people would do it, we would all be better off (except for the spammers.)
Great news: Kalena Jordan sent me this:
" Hey Gab, Search Engine College would be happy to throw in a course of the winner's choice to the value of $295"
Woohoo! Go Search Engine COllege :D.
I'm coooooonstantly clicking 'report as spam'. The problem is the sheer volume of it. Human clicks don't scale to automated submissions, especially late at night (north american time zones, in particular).
Some ideas:
If a profile submits two stories that get nailed as spam, it has to submit captchas from there on in, and get mods' voting up its stories to get back into good graces (i.e. no more captchas). Should kill some of the human submitted spam, and perhaps whittle off some of the automated crap.
Another point would be to try an idea I had for 'dynamic spam filtering'. Currently, if you rely on one captcha, it could take a day or two to break it. Now suppose you get a bunch of captchas and string em together, so that a bot can never be sure which captcha it's gonna face? They're dynamically rotated like ad banners. You can complicate things further by alternating in skill testing questions, and if you have other spam prevention techniques, using those too.
While you're hacking Pligg (I know you love it Danny ;) ) why not also require some voting and/or commenting before people can submit content? And perhaps use the same dynamic spam filtering for the first half dozen comments/votes a person makes (more if their comments get voted down).
Another idea might be to look through profiles you've banned and see what patterns you can ID. Are some IPs notorious for sending craptastic members? Ban that proxy! A particular c block full of crud? Goodbye...
Can we have the spam filter set to go off whenever Jason Calacanis' name is mentioned?
How about a warning banner on the submit page that states that if you submit articles that get removed as spam we'll tell Danny you drank all his Diet Coke and send him to your house with a baseball bat? Would that be enough of a deterrent?
"But I'm with JohnWeb -- it only takes three spam report clicks to kill things of the page and kick it to the mods to review. "
Are you absolutely sure about that, Danny? You wouldn't have the settings where it's 3 spam reports per sphinn by any chance?
Interesting question Brian. Danny? Sphinn mods? Can we get some feedback? Danny, how do you feel about Ken's diet coke and baseball bat point?
@Gab: Would this be for comment spam, story spam, or both?
Interesting. Curious how this will progress, mostly to the point of implementing the same thing on one of my sites :p
Good point though Gab, fixing this kind of issue should be a top priority
I'm thinking that he meant story spam. I'm on the submit pages and it would probably take me all of 10 minutes or less to add a sphinn submission option in an auto submitter. What about some type of captcha/verification where you have to add 2+2=____ just have the staff change it once in a while. I know, it's a small bit of work to change that once in a while, but if you are getting a high volume of spam, it should cut down a percentage and it's not like some of those crazy captchas where you are scratchnig your head wondering about it... or hitting the refresh button...
http://www.marketposition.com/blog/archives/re-captcha.gif
If you're OK with hitting the refresh button tho... and you ignore the image above, try: http://recaptcha.net/learnmore.html
@shady - story spam, specifically.
Marketposition, that might be a nice move. If they can rotate with a banner ad rotator type thing, perhaps your suggestion could be implemented by swapping the rotation every couple of months.
Users should get some kind of reward for marking stories as spam. So if I flag a story as spam and it subsequently gets removed then I get a "spam-killer" point.
Then make a top ten list of spam killers with a dofollow link to their websites?
first you start by propping up a box with a stick
next you attach a rope to the stick
and then you put bait in the box in the form of a link
when the spammer goes for the link you pull the rope and trap him
done and done
Andy I think that's a brilliant suggestion! Hell yeah! I'm so down :D.
Glad you like it, Gab. Not sure how easy it would be to hack into Pligg though.
more mods - make it easier for more members to become moderators so we can scan each and every post and comment. Also make the first ten comments subject to moderation. This will slow down the scammers and spammers!
Every member is already a moderator in as much as clicking the "report spam" link next to the post, ensures the story is removed from view after three clicks.
Ian, I thnk seobro's point was that more people should have the power to finally remove spam once and for all. It's more important late at night when fewer people are on, clicking 'report spam' links.
Create a section similar to "Greatest Hits" but instead call it something like "off the Mark" or "clueless newbies" and list the profiles of people who have sphinned submissions that were later moderated out as spam or junk or otherwise voted off by the community. The "top o the list" person is the one most "off the mark".. most out of tune with the community standards.
No one wants to be on the first page of that list... and if they do, they've labled themselves as candidates for banning.
Just revisiting this post Gab - let me know when/if you would still like the freebie and to whom I should send it :-)