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Merits 6 from 2 users
Re: Is there any point in reporting spam megathreads?
by
hilariousetc
on 28/09/2018, 07:36:02 UTC
⭐ Merited by Welsh (3) ,Foxpup (3)
I’ve been reporting quite a few spam megathreads lately, but it has reminded me of the Sisyphus myth, where a man pushes a rock up a mountain, only to see it roll it down when he arrives at the top. Then, he goes down, and starts pushing it up again.

I’m saying this because I can report lots of threads, but new ones can be opened. In fact, they are opened every they. And in many cases, you cannot report them as soon as they are opened because their OP is somewhat interesting, but they turn into spam megatheads later on.

What do you think about it?


Well you've touched on a huge problem here that needs to be addressed, but what we need to be doing is tackling the issue at the source. And of course the source of the spam megathreads in the campaigns and their managers that pay these users to post in them continually. As long as shoddy campaigns can get away with paying spammers then nothing at all is going to change and a handful of reporters and mods is not enough to defeat thousands of shitposters shitposting every day. That's why there needs to be some community standards for signature campaigns and punishments for those that don't abide by them. Until there is then it's just like fighting a a hydra; you trash or lock one thread and then two more have already popped up in their place.

The more people report them the less they gonna be, now the sig. spam is reduced and the new threads should not be so many as before. Btw those megatheads are perfect for plagiarism hunting.

Well plagiarism is another huge issue in itself that we need to address, but we shouldn't be leaving threads up just so we can catch copy and pasters easier.

Some of the boards almost needs a fresh start, kind of like what Flying Hellfish did when he became mod of P&S. There are loads of spam threads, and old ones that have been dead for a month or two are frequently bumped and then the spammers flood them again.

All spam megathreads need locked, and then any thread growing to over say 5 pages needs actively monitored by a dedicated board mod. Within 5 pages OPs question is usually (not always) answered, there is no ongoing discussion, and the comments are just generic one or two liners posted to meet bounty requirements.

As I just said in another thread, theymos has all the stats of all the reporters in each separate sub board and there's already quite a few very high reporters to choose from including some very long-standing and pretty trusted users. I've suggested a couple in the past that I'm sure would make a huge difference, but leaving sub like Bitcoin Discussion without dedicated mods is only going to make it worse whilst putting more pressure on existing staff to handle the mountains of reports coming in which is never ending.