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Tim Campion
Tim Campion
4:25 AM
I just flagged a post which was a clear case of spam and now I'm curious: are there repercussions for the user who posted it? In this case it was a brand-new account which apparently was made exclusively for spam purposes, and I'd be happy to see the account deleted. Is that what happens, or does the account live on as a zombie?
 
Martin Sleziak
Martin Sleziak
4:39 AM
Basic info on spam posts can be found in the corresponding tag-info.
The section What effects do these flags have on a post? from the FAQ post What are the “spam” and “rude or abusive” (offensive) flags, and how do they work? seems somewhat relevant to your question.
> 6 red flags: post is locked and deleted, and the author loses 100 reputation. (Locking means that users with the moderator tools privilege (“10k users”) cannot edit or undelete it.)
> Currently, a post deleted by community through a validated spam/offensive flag or by 6 user flags incurs a -100 reputation penalty for the user, as well as kicks off several automatic rate-limiting and automated ban algorithms.
I would assume that with several downvoted and deleted post, as spammer quickly gets question banned on MathOverflow.
I also found this: Implement cross-site posting rate limits to slow down spammers. But it seems that this is behavior for all users, regardless of the spam flags: Implement cross-site posting rate limits to slow down spammers.
@TimCampion As far as I know, the account is not deleted without some intervention of diamond users (moderators or Stack Exchange staff).
You can check for yourself that several accounts which posted spam on MO still do exist.
I'd guess they are probably mostly harmless - at worst they contain some links, but not many people will see them and the links should contain nofollow directive.
Anyway there were some discussions on MathOverflow Meta about users with spam links in their profiles: Companies accounts allowed? and Flagging spam user.
Here is an answer posted by MO moderator to one of those questions:
12
A: Flagging spam user

Todd TrimbleI'm happy to hear what the community thinks, but my instinctual reaction would be to destroy it. The account has no business here and the page is meanwhile free billboard space: not something I think should be condoned.

BTW regarding the specific post you've mentioned, I have reported it in Charcoal HQ, (a room related to SmokeDetector).
I saw your comment on the post:
> If you happen across this post, you can do more than downvoting -- if you have at least 15 reputation you can click the "flag" button just underneath the tags on the question (next to the "share" "cite" "edit" and "close" buttons). Apparently 6 flags are needed in order for the post to be automatically deleted.
I have seen some users reacting to the spam posts in various ways. For example, interacting with them as if they were genuine posts. (Although maybe some of those comments might be sarcasm directed towards the spammer.)
Or the tag spam was created a few times in the past.
Possibly it might be useful to have faq or faq-proposed post explaining what to do when people see spam post also on Meta MathOverflow - in addition to the information in the help-center you have linked and the posts on Meta Stack Exchange which are linked in the tag-info.
 
Tim Campion
Tim Campion
5:21 AM
@MartinSleziak Thanks! I guess that's about what I expected. I wasn't aware of this Charcoal / SmokeDetector business. It seems pretty cool!
 
Martin Sleziak
Martin Sleziak
Well, you can find out more about SD in the SmokeDetector wiki. Here is a brief exchange with Todd Trimble - which contains some other related links and comments.
 
Martin Sleziak
Martin Sleziak
5:45 AM
Sorry, I wrote about a brief discussion with Todd Trimble in chat concerning SD, but I have forgotten to include the link: chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/10243/conversation/…
 

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