OpenStreetMap

Reporting Spam (or not)

Posted by alexkemp on 26 May 2016 in English. Last updated on 31 May 2016.

Why is it impossible to report spam in these diaries? A simple ‘report me’ link would do it.

Here are the latest examples (just in the last hour - all Chinese, naturally):—

http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/bobbleheadscustom/diary/38724
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/holleywebc/diary/38715
http://www.openstreetmap.org/user/Dachzelt/diary/38713


Added 10:49 UTC 01:00:
I ran a website for 10+ years and am a moderator on stopforumspam.com. I know precisely what it takes to stop spam…

The simple method would be:—

  1. Make a Report Link
    (at the backend send an email)
    (that will take an hour to setup)
    (mods & admins get an immediate heads-up on new spam)
    (once in place, do next steps)
  2. Start blocking on combos of IP+email address
    (if a new user tries to create an account from a known bad IP + Email, then block it)
  3. Start reporting IP+email address+username from spammers
    (note that this loops back to [1])
    (it means that the amount of spam on the site rapidly begins to fall to zero)

Discussion

Comment from Richard on 26 May 2016 at 05:39

Why is it impossible to report spam in these diaries? A simple ‘report me’ link would do it.

Because no-one’s yet coded the feature, and as alluded to in the ticket linked by CloCkWeRX, it’s not quite as simple as you might think. Patches very welcome!

Comment from alexkemp on 26 May 2016 at 09:52

Many thanks for your comments CloCkWeRX & Richard. I’m now going back to mapping.

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