@YCor One more disadvantage to editing is that if I see that the most recent activity was by a low rep user, I am very likely to check whether the post needs attention. (New users often need help with MathJax, tagging, etc. Post by low rep users are also more often off-topic or spam.) So if I see that the most recent activity on the question was by on an experienced user, it makes slightly less probable that I notice that the post was spam. (Reporting the post in charcoal in addition to editing it would resolve this problem.) — Martin Sleziak 1 hour ago
7:06 AM
@MartinSleziak thanks, I ignored this aspect. I don't know what "reporting the post in charcoal" means. — YCor 26 mins ago
> You are always welcome to report spam, or posts you think might be spam, in Charcoal HQ. Charcoal is a project with the specific goal to help with detecting spam in the Stack Exchange Network. Charcoal has a chat room, Charcoal HQ, in which a bot, SmokeDetector, reports all the spam it detects on all sites in the Stack Exchange Network.
> The people in Charcoal HQ have a lot of experience with combating spam and can give an opinion on posts that might be borderline, including checking to see if any domain, phone number, or email has been used in previously detected spam.
> Mentioning in Charcoal HQ spam posts which you find also helps the SmokeDetector bot detect similar spam in the future, as members of the project will update the things the bot looks for to detect spam, so the spam you report is detected in the future. If users in Charcoal HQ think the post is spam, they're sure to add some spam flags to help the post be deleted faster.
in Charcoal HQ, 1 hour ago, by Martin Sleziak
!!/report https://mathoverflow.net/questions/336289/where-can-i-find-the-best-low-temperature-battery-manufacturer
More people will notice the spam post (since SD post message about spam also into some other rooms if the post remains visible for some time). And also SD will add the post into database - which might help detection of the spam in the future. (For example, it is possible to check whether there were some spame posts from a given domain in the past.)
However, to user report command you need to get some privileges. List of SD commands can be found here: github.com/charcoal-se/smokedetector/wiki/Commands
1 hour later…
8:26 AM
BTW here you can see posts which were caught by SD but stayed on MO for a relatively long time: chat.meta.stackexchange.com/… (Of course, not of them are spam posts. Sometimes posts detected by the SmokeDetector are actually false positives.)
6 hours later…
1:57 PM
Since I talked here about Charcoal and SmokeDetector, I could have mentioned as examples the spam posts that were caught today:
in Charcoal HQ, 9 hours ago, by SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in body, potentially bad ns for domain in body (100): Errors with Outlook Search Not Working by harryred123 on
mathoverflow.netin Charcoal HQ, 8 hours ago, by SmokeDetector
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Blacklisted website in answer, potentially bad ns for domain in answer, blacklisted user (163): Eilenberg-Mac Lane spaces for surface group extensions. by harryred123 on
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