Lately, there's been a fair amount of spam on the boards (no offense to the mods; they've done a great job cleaning it up); it would be really great (and probably easier on the mods) if there was a "Report post" button on each post. That would keep the mods from having to run all over the place finding & cleaning up spam, since they could see all the reported posts in one place and (presumably) delete them without having to chase all over the board.
If that's not practical/not wanted, feel free to delete this thread... I'm just trying to make a (hopefully) helpful suggestion.
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Suggestion: "Report post" function
December 22, 2009 - 11:46pm
#1
Suggestion: "Report post" function
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second:
I like the idea.
"It's just an online installer. It's not going to mug you.", JTH
"The shell is the key to unlock Linux's greatest advantages."
Good idea; what about a "notify moderator" button? Drupal supports a flag node function, if I am not mistaken.
It's a great idea and it would be good if it was implemented, but what about abuse? These type of things always get abused, and you could get people flagging actual posts as spam as some form of cheap tactic, e.g. flame wars.
But there’s no sense crying over every mistake,
You just keep on trying till you run out of cake.
Since the mods would (presumably) be able to see who reported the post, IMHO people aren't going to flag legit posts as spam. Eventually that kind of thing will get them in trouble with the mods, which is what nobody wants...
The only potential for abuse I see (maybe I'm missing something, though) comes #1 from anonymous reporting (which whould probably be disabled, or even the bots could use that) or #2 from people who are regular flame-war participants.
Idea: perhaps make reporting a privilege, like any other. Those who abuse it, lose it.
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
If they lose reporting privileges, you may as well delete their account ;).
I think it's a great idea. If anybody at all is worried about abuse, that'll have to wait until John adds a few more tiers to the user privilege system (e.g. wiki privs, blog privs, etc.).
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I definitely think that this should be implemented!
It amazes me that on the internet you can be anything you want, and yet so many people still choose to be idiots.
...at least that's what we call it over on GameFAQs, but that's neither here nor there...
Basically it isn't a big priority because all spam is here, is temporary graffiti. John's got the ref=nofollow tag set (something like that) that basically boils down to the fact that spamming portableapps.com is not profitable in the least. Apparently spammers make money by posting links which boost the products they're spamming about in Google searches (because the products they're spamming about appear more) but since we have that nofollow thingy on, it doesn't count us as contributing to that. So they are wasting their time. Then the posts are just deleted when it is convenient.
I actually, disagree with this idea.
The mods do a great job of cleaning up this forum. There's no reason why we should bug them with their job.
They'll probably have about 10 reports just for one thing clogging up their email.
To be fair, it doesn't email them (though IIRC they can subscribe and get emailed). They just get an extra page on the forums somewhere where the reports are listed. Mods can bookmark this and hit it up first thing when they log in or however they like to do it.
Most drupal addons just email the mod.
I'd be surprised to see one that creates a brand new page for them.
And that's why I really want to find a service that translates emails to RSS feeds.
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I know the mods do a great job cleaning up, and the intention isn't to bug them; the intention is to make it easier for them to find the spam without having to chase all over the board. (I mean, the bots are hitting everything from release pages to forum topics to replies nested deep within forum topics - IMHO, it's a lot easier on the mods if they could see all that spam in one place instead of 5 or 10 different places)
"The question I would like to know, is the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. All we know about it is that the Answer is Forty-two, which is a little aggravating."
Again, as I understand it, it isn't a priority. The timing isn't an issue because the links don't have affiliate/referral codes (e.g. ?ref=123456789 at the end of the URL) and the board is set up to not contribute to the link counting or whatever that the search engines employ. So the difference of minutes isn't entirely crucial. It's usually one account, all they have to do is track the account and delete the posts. Shouldn't take much time. Certainly not enough time that they're worrying about it.
I agree, it's an okay feature, but I suppose they would implement it if they wanted it.