Hey hey hey!

alexgaynor.net/2016/jan/19/dont-have-environments

Hey, did we discuss this one? alleywatch.com/2016/10/looking-technical-cofounder-startup

The non-technical co-founder sure better know how to sell, or he's a gigantic waste of equity - IMHO.

free spam flags: softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/334770/…

@gnat That is not spam and should not be flagged as such. Although I'd say that's low quality enough to warrant a standard moderator flag.

@gnat I disagree with that post. It does not meet the definition of spam as it's defined in the flag or in other posts on Meta.

@ThomasOwens "A post should be marked as spam ONLY when it contains an unsolicited advertisement." (quote from MSE faq) Poster advertises their job offer: "looking for a mentor to help me solve my basic coding problem within web development. Please let me know if you would be happy to help me." And it's unsolicited

@gnat That's not a job offer, though.

Not all jobs are paid

Spam is exclusively a post that "exists only to promote a product or service, does not disclose the author's affiliation.

This post does not promote a product or service. Therefore, it is not spam.

Thomas, if I understand you right, you think this isn't spam as it isn't offering mentoring, but requesting it

?

@Tom Yes.

The definition of spam on SE has always been much narrower than the definition of spam on other communities.

but since mentoring is providing a service (of sharing knowledge and wisdom), why should it matter if the post is offering or requesting the service?

On other communities (and when talking about spam emails), it does indeed mean any unsolicited or unwanted messages. It would include gibberish posts and some off-topic posts. However, on SE, spam explicitly means unsolicited advertising of products and services. Since this does not advertise a service, it can't be spam.

Spam flags have special implications in the system.

but it does advertise a service request

That's not what the spam flag is for.

I'm not arguing against flagging this post.

So what would your solution to these types of posts be?

Flag as very low quality or for moderator intervention.

Cast a close or delete vote as appropriate, as well.

A spam flag has a very specific and special meaning. If the post itself does not directly advertise a product or service, it should not be used.

doesn't it work out to about the same in the end run?

Nope.

If a post gets auto-deleted as spam, the system takes other actions.

I can't get into all of the details (I'm not sure how much SE has actually disclosed to the general public, and I'm sure I'm not even aware of all the details).

I'd think that (successful) spam flags also flag the account (to help nip bots in the bud)

while custom or low quality flag won't

i've seen low quality flag/suspend accounts though

Suspension is a moderator-only action.

@Tom that would be at the discretion of the moderator

People can be suspended for low quality. There's a whole other system in place that automatically handles spam that moderators don't control.

So if people jump on spam flags and a moderator doesn't intervene, it could have unintended side effects that can't be undone by a moderator.

do spam closures have any kind of manual review process?

@Tom no

They do go to the moderator flag queue.

occasionally as a moderator I see them, but most spam is not seen by moderators

It takes so many people before the system handles it.

as enough spam flags auto deletes it

sounds like a hole in the system to me then.

How so?

get a group together and bump someone of the site I guess

though that would be caught and a power higher than mere moderators will intervene

Hm. Yeah. That could be a problem. However, I think it's harder to trigger the anti-spam measures on an established account.

btw, I'm not trying to argue against the system, just looking for holes to help improve it for everyone, newbie and established alike.

it's an old and decently proven system though

it's not likely you are going to stumble onto a hole

no, but i can try my best to hunt them down, can't i?

we can't stop you, (except when you go and exploit them and you get banned for it ;) )

nah, i like to work in the system and question all the logic, not push my luck

though i think i may be going a bit nuts today from having to look at some really weirdly designed code that is starting to resemble the necronomicon

dump it and start over?

i wish

the code is working, i just have a small addition request, and I'm not sure if I can deny it without talking to the boss who's at educon

@ThomasOwens I checked with folks in Charcoal HQ room who specialize on catching spam in SE network, they seem to agree with your assessment that job offers don't qualify for spam flags, even paid ones

@gnat I'm also looking into that Meta post that you linked to, since it's wrong.

That kind of guidance should not be given out.

@ThomasOwens well since we decide to use strict meaning when talking about spam flags, it would be fair to be strict when reading that MSO post wouldn't it. And strictly speaking one can't say it's wrong. It doesn't tell readers use spam flags, it doesn't refer any formal definitions nor does it pretend to be formal in any way. Per my reading it states pretty informally that job offers are spam. And it just doesn't give any formal, strict grounds to say that it is wrong

@gnat It says it's spam, and there's a flag called spam. I think any reasonable person (especially one who isn't familiar with the little nuances of the system) would assume that if you should use the spam flag.

@ThomasOwens that doesn't fly to me sorry. In the context so strict that it can't qualify blatant job offers (even paid ones!) for spam flags, I find that references to "reasonable person assumptions" are too vague. How about we apply equal judgement to this post and to spam flags, either both are treated informally or both are treated strictly

@gnat I'm treating both strictly.

@ThomasOwens you might be able to fix this question, it seems the type of q you like: softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/334792/…

"A post should be marked as spam ONLY when it contains an unsolicited advertisement." ==> This says you should use a spam flag if there is an unsolicited advertisement. It relies on Wikipedia to define unsolicited advertisement. However, that's not how spam flags should be used, so this guidance needs to be corrected.

@enderland Oh, interesting. I'm not sure if I can fix it, but maybe leave a comment to help the asker fix it.

@ThomasOwens lol. I'm glad I suggested you fix it and not me

:|

Hi hi hi!

@enderland Well, he didn't want to fix it. So I blew it away. No time for people who actively don't want to participate in our rules.

:/

I'm a bleeding heart conservative on that sort of thing. Sometime you have to let people get rekt, but I wish we could save more.

Of course, I don't have the time...

Some people don't understand that closing fast is a good thing.

That depends on the result. If deleted, yes. If saved, I'd rather it had not been closed at all.

But once a question is closed, they actively need to work to make it good. That's another thing they don't understand - forums don't often have the same kind of quality control that we do here.

@AaronHall If you don't close it, you allow someone else who doesn't understand the system to dump in a low quality answer.

Which we can downvote, and cause the answerer to learn from the mistake.

Except that answer also needs to be deleted eventually.

They can all get deleted.

To do that effectively requires a moderator.

I just got 3 rep back from a similar case on SO.

I can kind of see where you're coming from. But experience has showed that closing fast, letting the community engage in comments, and then reopening leads to higher quality answers.

It probably just leads to more thinking about the subject -> which leads to higher quality answers. :P

Probably. It's definitely more of a concern on Stack Overflow. They do have a much larger FGITW problem than we do here.

@ThomasOwens that guy had... an attitude

Yeah, he did.