Sponsor |  lerryn | Nov 19, 2007 12:59am | thanks for your responses, and i am assured that the system is indeed working! The problem with spammers is that banning is no deterrent, many of the people i flagged as spammers have blogs that are now inactive simply because they opened an account, spammed then moved on. No amount of banning is going to stop this behaviour it is too easy just to open a new account. The only way to deter a spammer is to not click the links, if they get no response from stumblers then they will move on the more lucrative pastures! Now i have no magic wand that will make people stop clicking spam (i am still amazed that people do believe that someone is willing to give them $10 million!)Lets just keep flagging and spreading the word not to click on spam!
re group owners, i notice that todays spam in the google group is owned by gmc, i am sure he is too busy to mod forums perhaps mods should be appointed one in say USA the other in Europe to stop spammers using the time difference! |
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Staff | | CH | Nov 19, 2007 1:09am | My Gmail accounts have - unusually - presented me with a fair bit of spam in my inbox today.
I'm minded to observe that our "report spammer" system is analogous to email spam detection facilities, in that they have to go through a period of "training" in order to be able to recognise spammers effectively. You might consider our flagging system to be in "training mode" at this time (but dealing with the spammers that are reported as it learns).
In common with email spam detection systems, new stuff will occasionally make an appearance as the spammers change tactics. Just as you need to then "report as spam" in your inbox, so too should you get into the habit of "report spam/flag as spammer" when stumbling. It's an annoyance we all learn to suffer, but as with email, you should aim to get into a mode where you simply click that "report as spam" button and leave the system to do the rest. |
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Sponsor | | nixande | Nov 19, 2007 4:15pm | then again, people have different perceptions of what is spam or not (just like people have different perceptions of what is porn or not, as you bring up europe / usa for timezones ...)
We probably can agree on that some people are more stupid than others when spamming, but the same goes the other way round - people would not do it if it was not lucrative to do so.
while there is a certain amount of things where "everybody" agrees that something is spam, there is also a fine line between your personal perception and what is good for the masses.
in the sense of SU, somebody spamming the forums but not 'hurting' the pool of pages is easier to spot than somebody just doing spam with the pages.
as for group moderation: yes, the timezone thing is a thing usually, but not really that relevant. one way to make it harder for spammers is to only allow people to post after a certain while as well as require an amount of posting before being able to post themselves.
then again, this is a cat and mice game. ;( |
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Sponsor | | Karolinger | Nov 19, 2007 4:25pm | StumbleUpon defines SPAM.
stumbleupon.com/terms.html [stumbleupon.com/terms.html]
1.4 Restrictions. Multiple StumbleUpon accounts held by the same individual are subject to termination unless expressly authorized in advance and in writing by StumbleUpon. Accounts created with the primary intention to promote a product or service are considered "SPAM" and subject to termination unless expressly authorized in advance in writing by StumbleUpon. |
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Sponsor | | Hapax | Nov 19, 2007 5:11pm | 14 Sounds nice and clear. But then I read the rest of the document and found:
4.4 Photographs. You may not post a photograph of another person without that person's permission.
Since I suspect that the great majority of stumbleblogs would be found to contravene that, apparently equally clear, clause, I wonder how close these Terms of Service are to the finished article. |
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Sponsor | | CastorQuinn | Nov 19, 2007 5:14pm | | That's talking about posting photos of other stumblers, pinching their photographic avatars and using them as your own, publishing photos you find of other stumblers on the net, or which they show you privately, that sort of thing. It doesn't apply to posting photographs that have been uploaded to picture galleries by the owners. |
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Sponsor | | Hapax | Nov 19, 2007 5:20pm | | I can easily imagine what it's supposed to mean, but it being at least a quasi-legal document, I would expect a closer approximation of word to sense. |
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Sponsor | | CastorQuinn | Nov 19, 2007 5:24pm | | Even in legal documents a certain level of common sense needs to be applied. You couldn't possibly interpret that to mean you can only thumb pictures of flowers and animals. It's clearly related to people who are members of the community. |
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Sponsor | | Hapax | Nov 19, 2007 5:28pm | I suspect we'll have to agree to disagree on this, CQ, since the simple rephrasing You may not post a photograph of another member of the StumbleUpon community without that person's permission would remove the ambiguity.
There are a number of other points where I find the statement of terms either vague or ambiguous beyond what I think it's reasonable to expect, but this was simply the most glaring. |
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Sponsor | | nixande | Nov 19, 2007 5:40pm | well, strictly speaking nobody can post photographs without the expressed licence of the rights holder, but that is a whole different story.
what i find more interesting is the part Accounts created with the primary intention to promote a product or service are considered "SPAM" and subject to termination unless expressly authorized in advance in writing by StumbleUpon. - so if i talk to SU before that I am going to spam everyone, it is considered okay? ;)
[if done in a good way, there is no problem with having somebody promote their services, but usually never it gets done in a good way ...] |
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