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Is it just me or is there more spam than usual the last days? Has anything changed in how we handle spam, making it more visible, or is it just another wave?

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  • 5
    It has always and will always probably come in waves. Yes, this seems to be one of those waves. Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 19:40
  • Yes, I flagged 7 in the last 2 hours, 4 of which only in the last 5 minutes. Never saw a wave so intense before.
    – kos
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 19:57
  • Me neither, hence my question... I'm almost at 30 now...
    – Jan
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 20:02
  • There was indeed a spam peak today. One of the CM's was alerted, and changed the spam filter settings for this site, after which the spam subsided.
    – ArtOfCode
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 21:18
  • Visited the homepage just moments ago and was met with spam sitting in first position. Immediately flagged it. How can one flag an individual user as a spammer or otherwise naughty person?
    – mheadroom
    Commented Oct 10, 2015 at 5:40
  • I am fairly new to the site but I did notice a huge wave yesterday/last night. However, I also noticed that they were flagged and deleted before I actually got them open. I was suitably impressed. Good job, mods. Is there any way to make them disappear from the screen or is it just a timing issue between my refreshing the page and them being deleted?
    – KGIII
    Commented Oct 11, 2015 at 22:47
  • Probably needs to be a separate question/feature request @mheadroom
    – Daniel
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 0:39
  • @KGIII the front page is slightly cached, so the titles sometimes stick around for ~5 minutes or so, but not long.
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 22:55
  • @mheadroom There is no direct way to flag users. You do have several options though. Use a custom flag on one of their posts, those don't get cleared by post deletion. The other is drop by Ask Ubuntu Chat and ping a moderator. Custom flags work better, but there are some edge cases where they aren't possible.
    – Seth Mod
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 22:57
  • @Seth thanks. I'm learning my way around, slowly but surely.
    – KGIII
    Commented Oct 12, 2015 at 22:58
  • Don't worry, we have Smoke Detectors placed strategically throughout the network, so it helps remove spam fast. Commented Oct 20, 2015 at 7:15

1 Answer 1

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It's ironic that you're asking this question in the middle of a new spam wave... >:-)

When looking at all this going on in the chat room, your meta question looked (just for a µ-second) like spam too:

enter image description here

To answer your questions:

  • Yes, they come in waves (When some "SEO optimizing company" gets hired, probably)
  • No, we still handle it the usual way (humans flagging it as spam)
  • No, we're not making it more visible. (You've just seem your first spam wave apparently)
  • We even have a standard saying: SPAM WAVE! Man the SPAM stations!

;-)

Now I'm going back to flag some spam again

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    One of the benefits of Ask Ubuntu being a larger member of the Stack Exchange network is that there are always enough eyeballs on the home page to make sure spam disappears within seconds of being posted. Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 20:03

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