Maybe give some of the long time regulars moderator level control (like Architect, etc) so we can filter out events like tonight with 40+ spam messages in a row. 
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I found myself wishing for a ākick offā button as the spamming seemed to be relentless,something tthat would prevent access for 24hrs.
I found that with one of the spammers I couldnāt mark the post as spam as the button was greyed out. I could see that no one else had marked it at that point. Initially I thought that perhaps Josh had deleted that user but there were a further half a dozen posts made after this.
I think that there are still some gremlins in the system. The fact that @ Skewworks could see a list of 40+ spam posts would also indicate that.
The fact that @ Skewworks could see a list of 40+ spam posts would also indicate that.
Not sure if it was 40 but many. I could not see a way to mark as spam at the time
Iām guessing that there is code that blocks being marked for spam after a user has over "xā experience points.
I think you are right. It seems like marking the post as spam doesnāt subtract the points from the user.
Same problem today.
We as members can mark posts as spam, but only up to a point. Once the spammer has made X # of posts and has X number of points, the system wont let us mark any more spam.
What is the reasoning behind not letting someone mark a post as spam, even if the poster has a few hundred points?
Is it to prevent abuse?
It wouldnāt be a problem if posts marked as spam did not accumulate points. This has gotten out of control. Something needs to change soon. How about -100 points for any post marked as spam and three consecutive spam posts gets an automatic banishment of the user.
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This guy is posting so fast that he still might make it to minor unless there were several users online ready to mark spam
Thatās where my idea of -100 pts comes into play. We only have to catch 1 of 10 to set him back to zero.
I feel so much happier today though, all my problems are solved. Just once call !
@ Brett - Did you get the free set of steak knives as well? 
Thatās it, heās now unblockable.
theyāre in the mail, so they said.
[ and now back to your regular clearing of 70 message backlog of unread repeats of the same messageā¦ ]
Uh, what is this strange pork product I am waking up to? What an industrious (or well scripted) little bugger we have here.
I agree that we should
a) enable certain chefs to have immediate block/ban ability (reviewable/reversable by GHI staff). One button for spam, one button for blocking special wingnuts like our new friend here. Maybe use three moderators ; one US, one Europe, one Oceania for potential 24 hr coverage
b) use an automated stop-spam web service to score posts from newbies and minors - high scores need to be approved before shown, You could turn the crank all the way toward āabsolute certaintyā (min false positives) and these posts still would have gotten flagged.
fwiw, Adafruit uses such a services, and auto-bans IP ranges for 7 days when posts are detected as spam.
There are a lot of solutions for this, for example we could limit new users to only so many posts (or new topics) in their first 24 hours, or we could withhold their points for 24 hours and if they have x spam messages, given them the royal punt, but as is the spammers have clearly added this site to their happy list and so something will be needed to get it off their happy list.
I agree. We are now in danger of being swamped with these spams on a daily basis.
@ Duke Nukem - I think a bigger one-strike hammer is needed, per my prev post. Somebody isnāt going to advertise escorts in India and astrology lines and then suddenly develop an interest in SOMās.
@ mcalsyn - Iām all for hammers as its clearly a losing battle as is.