Questions tagged [spam-handling]

For question or suggestion to handling spam.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
-14 votes
1 answer
363 views

Homepage spammed

I'm getting sick of writing these posts. But, yep our homepage was spammed by a bunch of spammers. As usual my question is this: How can we prevent this? Note that these things have been happening ...
Starship - On Strike's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
174 views

New user promoting a single service - (subtle) spam?

This user was created today, and the user has written 3 answers, of which 2 has been removed as spam (visible to +10k users): How to connect to remote desktop, Kali Linux from ubuntu? Multi-user ...
Artur Meinild's user avatar
8 votes
2 answers
188 views

Are new users banned from answering "highly active questions"?

This question was asked on July 1: Ubuntu 20.04 on a new Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 is not detecting my second monitor through HDMI Today, a new user with 1 reputation attempted to provide an answer to ...
Nmath's user avatar
  • 12.3k
2 votes
0 answers
138 views

Unregistered spammers should be deleted outright

A lot of spam is posted by unregistered users. They only have accounts on one site, and their only contribution is a spam or troll post. In my opinion, such users are not worth keeping. How about if ...
user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
207 views

Spam edit in already closed question

One of my answers got upvoted today on a question that has been closed as duplicate long ago, and after re-visiting it I've noticed the question body was edited to contain spammy text. I've already ...
Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
161 views

Automatic flagging of "keto" users with Reputation == 1?

I have not ever seen a question containing the word "keto" that was about Ubuntu. Is it possible to prevent Reputation 1 posters from posting a question containing "keto"?
waltinator's user avatar
  • 36.3k
10 votes
2 answers
113 views

How can I report user profile as inappropriate?

Is there a way to report a user based on their profile? I found a user whose profile description is clearly promoting a strip club as is their profile pic. I'm looking to report them based on their ...
Jeff's user avatar
  • 1,664
7 votes
4 answers
332 views

Should a post be flagged as spam if an author is clearly *not affiliated* with the promotion?

While I was going through the review queues today, I came across this answer: My original reaction was to flag it as spam, but then I reread the description under the spam flag: spam ...
Nonny Moose's user avatar
  • 2,245
6 votes
0 answers
90 views

Why does the site tease me about a comment I can't view?

A deleted answer marked as spam shows a "show 1 more comment" link, but clicking the link does not show the comment. Reloading the page does not make the problem go away. The deletion itself is ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
40 votes
2 answers
517 views

Thank you to whoever removes spam from Ask Ubuntu

... whoever manages / monitors this forum and removes the annoying spam health / medical rubbish which appears is doing a fantastic job. This is for Ubuntu questions, not 411 spam. Keep up the good ...
Piloti's user avatar
  • 1,110
8 votes
2 answers
158 views

Change in domain name

My domain name changed from bodhizazen.net to bodhizazen.com All the .net links now apparently point to spam. I got a message about this in the comments from your staff here /usr/sbin/update-info-...
Panther's user avatar
  • 102k
3 votes
1 answer
65 views

Suggested edits: is this spam?

I'm sure it is, but just checking that this indeed happens to the system. Anyway, who would waste time in such ridiculous and useless thing? PS: linked question is about blocking spam, not about ID. ...
user avatar
32 votes
2 answers
290 views

Obscure links to promote service

There's an interesting question (link for 10k'rs only) that was posted recently. On face value, it looks like a valid post. It asks a valid ubuntu question, but if you look a bit closer, it has a ...
anonymous2's user avatar
  • 4,298
2 votes
1 answer
99 views

Why my spam flag has been declined?

I flagged this answer. For those who can't read the deleted answer I am posting it here: I prefer to use virtual environments to install Ubuntu. You can use Vagrant or Docker. Both are excellent ...
Pilot6's user avatar
  • 90k
0 votes
1 answer
66 views

Completely off-topic, promoting!

In the past hour, I have seen two off-topic question promoting a service. Both were marked as spam. I am not even on that much, so if there is two this hour, and there is on average one a hour, 24 a ...
fosslinux's user avatar
  • 3,811
1 vote
1 answer
60 views

We should have an anti-spam filter at the 'Ask a question' stage

We have about 20 to 40 spam posts a day. Why shouldn't there be a feature to prevent this? Some ideas as to how we can do this: Search for words, and if post matches... (I've found the most common ...
user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
45 views

Possible spam page pointing cloning or pointing to askubuntu.com, how can I report it? [duplicate]

I recently noticed on my google webmaster account that a link was pointing to my website - which I did not recognise, so I thought I would visit it (in an incognito window) to see what it was and it ...
hazrpg's user avatar
  • 956
0 votes
1 answer
74 views

Filtering SPAM on AskUbuntu [duplicate]

Why are beauty products spam being constantly posted on AskUbuntu? Its very irritating. I know that this cannot be filtered by bots but aren't there a faster way to delete these spams? There had ...
Raphael's user avatar
  • 8,025
7 votes
4 answers
331 views

Dealing with this user

This morning the active questions page is flooded with spammy-like answers from this user: satomi. They all suggest to use the same software, and they are all structured in the same way, starting ...
kos's user avatar
  • 35.9k
13 votes
2 answers
316 views

Should I keep an eye on spam-like answers about free software? Or why do people spam-promote free software?

I mistakenly flagged this answer as spam. The flag was rejected. At first I tought the reason was that in first place the answer, on-topic or not, didn't refer to any paid software, but just to a bash ...
kos's user avatar
  • 35.9k
2 votes
2 answers
193 views

What exactly is considered "spam" in Ask Ubuntu?

Now I know that there have been questions that have already been asked related to this topic, But they don't answer my question. My question is this: what is actually considered as spam over here? I ...
CENTAUR's user avatar
  • 3,249
1 vote
1 answer
56 views

Feels like a promotion attempt - is it spam?

I was doing Late Answers review when I bumped into this question: How do I export saved passwords from my firefox password manager? The new user basically repeated a previously posted answer. They ...
kraxor's user avatar
  • 5,529
5 votes
1 answer
222 views

What is considered spam and what is not? When should I flag?

As the title says, my main question is: What is considered spam and what is not? When should I flag something as spam and when should I not? I read some meta posts about this, the most relevant ...
falconer's user avatar
  • 15k
3 votes
1 answer
131 views

Suggested Edits spam

Errmm... I keep getting things like this on the review thing - it seems to be anonymous users spamming... Here is a screen-shot in case the link does not work: Is there anyway of blocking this? ...
Wilf's user avatar
  • 30.2k
33 votes
1 answer
624 views

Regarding the recent wave of spam - what are we doing about it?

There's been a lot of spam and nonsense posted lately, everything from love connections to kids struggling through puberty demanding to be made moderators. What is being done about this, and what ...
Tim Post's user avatar
  • 832
2 votes
1 answer
53 views

Checking for phone numbers in spam filter

Is it possible to edit the spam to check for phone numbers? This black magic guy who keeps spamming always uses phone numbers, is it possible to check for this and try to block him?
Julian Stirling's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
97 views

SPAM attacks again!

Today we found a clever way spammer are trying to prevent falling into the spam protection system... that is recommending software relevant to the question so people in their curiosity search what is ...
Braiam's user avatar
  • 67.7k
32 votes
2 answers
524 views

Scammers try to push Windows App to Ubuntu & Sock puppets on askubuntu.com

Had posted (now gone) a question on how to install a franchise fraud application on Ubuntu, as he seemingly can't get it to work. Researching what this application is, I couldn't help myself but ...
MadMike's user avatar
  • 4,244
18 votes
0 answers
626 views

Spammers are being nastier withing the second!

To the reviewers that check First Time posts, please, be very alert about this new kind of attack: Spammers are now posting seemly valid answers/questions ripping of other posts/answers inside/...
Braiam's user avatar
  • 67.7k
3 votes
1 answer
90 views

Are spammers attacking the website?

This time two unregistered accounts with successive user numbers are the ones. One posts a question while the others posts seconds later with the spam answer solicited by the off-topic question. ...
Nil's user avatar
  • 1,006
11 votes
0 answers
145 views

Best way to notify the moderators?

So in the wake of the UFC-spam attack last night, I (like many of you) used-up all of my flags trying to fight the onslaught of crap being posted on our site. At one point, I noticed my flag amount ...
Aaron's user avatar
  • 6,714
12 votes
2 answers
157 views

Please add a new privilege that allows unlimited flagging to help combat spam!

A massive spam attack happened and I am only allowed to flag 9 of them. I didn't see any privileges that lifts this limit. If, at a certain point, this restriction is lifted, then delete this ...
Nil's user avatar
  • 1,006
7 votes
1 answer
177 views

Should spam-only accounts always be deleted?

Should accounts that have posted spam and don't appear to have contributed any non-spam content to the site always be deleted? My understanding--from limited observation and this may be wrong!--is ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
10 votes
1 answer
152 views

Should we commment on spam to get it deleted faster?

Recently I observe that obvious spam often gets far more down votes than spam flags would be needed for community deleting and locking: Should we in case of an obvious spam post leave a comment so ...
Takkat's user avatar
  • 142k
-8 votes
3 answers
253 views

How to deal with nonconstructive comments?

I read some kind of rule on SO or some sub site that were like this (very vague) You should not question the purposes, the if's and how's of why a particular person wan't to do a particular ...
James Mitch's user avatar
9 votes
2 answers
196 views

Should spam posts be edited, or still just flagged?

We've had an upswing of spam recently (hopefully short-lived), and I've noticed a few users editing spam posts to remove links. This has traditionally been considered a wrong approach on Ask Ubuntu. ...
Eliah Kagan's user avatar
19 votes
2 answers
285 views

Don't edit spam answers, just flag them

We've been hit by way more spam than normal, just thought I'd point out these discussions on meta that might be useful to folks: What can we do about the increasing amount of spam on Ask Ubuntu? ...
Jorge Castro's user avatar
  • 71.7k