Ask a Super User Moderator

4:15 AM

@Sathya there's a syntax error :P

@KronoS #no

lol

1 hour later…

barlop

5:22 AM

got the msg "@barlop your linked file in this question has expired. Please post the file somewhere reliable th..."

but can't see who it's from or what it's regarding

jsut a link to this chat and I don't see that line written in this chat either

chat message on Ask a Super User Moderator
@barlop your linked file in this question has expired. Please post the file somewhere reliable th...

5:43 AM

@barlop It's been removed by @Sathya. I'm assuming the issues has been resolved, or wasn't an issue after all.

@jacobjantuinstra wrt this I'm not sure why the flag? The question was edited because it was pretty poorly formatted, and the last edit made it even clearer, while retaining the actual question content. I don't see how it's been altered away from what it was asked. If anything, the last edit made it even better.

6:11 AM

Are any of the moderators here also moderators of EE.SE? There's a spammer there, needs intervention.

@AnindoGhosh I don't know of any EE/SU mods here... but who's the user?

@KronoS User is freshly registered, name Everdon, several posts like this one in the last 10 minutes.

@KronoS he just added yet another one.

@AnindoGhosh have you flagged the questions?

@KronoS flagged 4 of them as spam.

@AnindoGhosh I just flagged as well. Hopefully that'll bring them up in the queue

6:25 AM

@KronoS Excellent. From the looks of it, this chap's going to fill the first page or two with spam in short order. Is there a way to set an alert on a user for moderator / official demigod attention?

@Sathya you around?

@AnindoGhosh SU Mods are in short order around this time... No offense to @Sathya... it's just that he's about the only one I see during this few hour window.

yes, looking

@Sathya Ah thank you

spam flagged

@Sathya thanks... Wasn't sure if you could supa ping anyone, or if you could talk to anyone in y'all super secret Mod chat room

6:30 AM

@Sathya Yup, I spam flagged those too. Does that make any immediate difference at all? Or is it just something that adds to a queue?

@AnindoGhosh 6 spam flags kill the post

@KronoS there's no one in the mod room right now

@Sathya I didn't know that... that's good to know

@KronoS .. you didn't?

@Sathya I figured. This time of day is rough for all sites

@Sathya No... it makes sense though

it's that time when the folks in GMT are commuting, and the ones in surrounding ones are waking up/just reached office

6:35 AM

@Sathya Ideally if several of a single user's posts get spam-flagged that user should be auto-suspended, at least until moderator attention. That would address situations like this one.

@AnindoGhosh spam flags are always at the top priority in the queue. plus it deals a -100 rep penalty

as for auto suspension, that's not a bad idea. Could propose on meta

but in general, most spammers get killed nearly instantly

@Sathya It's funny, because a spammer would typically have 1 rep to begin with, so that -100 must be scary for them. Not.

@AnindoGhosh you assume all spammers start with 1 rep, which is not necessarily true - fairly common to have spammers post bait posts, gain some rep & then start spamming

@Sathya Gut feel: Some spammers are beginning to figure out when the mods are most likely to be away. Similar thing happened a couple of days ago as well, though that was a single spam post.

the rep penalty makes their rep drop, and new users can't post more than 2 links

6:39 AM

@Sathya Note the posts by Everdon: He's clearly figured out the 2-link limit. :-)

@Sathya And I assume that most spammers start with 1 rep, not all.

more like forced, the system prevents the post from going through if they contain more than 2 links

Journeyman Geek

And the community is downvoting the hell out of it

pity I don't have closevotes elsewhere ;p

@Sathya So what happens after this user gets blocked / deleted / whatever? They simply create another GMail account, re-register on SE, and start spamming again?

Q: What can I do when getting "Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions/answers from this account"?

@AnindoGhosh there are various features, where the system will prevent low quality posts from same set of IPs

if not we have blacklists (and the very rare case, IP bans)

153

IMPORTANT: CLICK HERE AND READ CAREFULLY! While trying to ask a question, one could get: Oops! Your question couldn't be submitted because: Sorry, we are no longer accepting questions from this account. See http://goo.gl/C1Kwu to learn more. Likewise, for answers: Oops! Yo...

this is one such filter.

Jacob Jan Tuinstra

@Sathya @Sathya: I've just seen that the ordering has changed as well. Back then, I was a bit confused to notice that many changes. Sorry for the inconvenience.

6:44 AM

@JacobJanTuinstra no problem :)

@Sathya Hmm. Since the threshold of entry for a new account seems to be trivial, anything short of IP-based restrictions is probably only going to slightly slow down the amateur spammer, and not bother the pro at all.

@Sathya 3 spam posts by Everdon still have insufficient spam flags.

7:04 AM

Thanks, all spam cleared. Bye!