Ever wondered why mods don't like you answering to spam/pirates/....? Read here!

[neobrain]

Hi,
first things first, if you didn't know it yet: As a moderator, it's very annoying when people answer to a pirate's or spambot's post instead of just reporting it and leaving it there. That's the general message that you should take from this thread. But since some people always write stupid answers anyway, I figured it would be more effective to explain it "visually" to them:

So, earlier today I came across this post in the Wind Waker CPU Benchmark thread:



And some forum user quickly enough answering him, kindly asking what the hell he's talking about. Well, it's not that hard to notice that jason was a spammer, so instead of replying, DefenderX should've just reported the post. But whatever, I decided I'll visit jason's profile....


... and ban him so he can't post any further spam.


After banning spambots, I usually delete all of their posts, so I go back to jason's profile...


... and delete all of his posts:




I usually stop at this point and go do something else. However, I guess some people will visit the Wind Waker CPU Benchmark thread lateron, and what they see will be this:


See what's wrong there?


I.e. to sum things up, I kindly ask anyone around here again to not answer to pirates or to spambots (or similar cases) and to make use of the "Report" button where appropriate instead.

[rpglord]

Well I can kindly suggest method some mods use on another forums-simply delete all follow up posts.
I am sure another users will understand

[DefenderX]

This was a spambot?

...embarrassing

[neobrain]

Well I can kindly suggest method some mods use on another forums-simply delete all follow up posts.
I am sure another users will understand

There's no option to delete "all posts including follow up posts". Plus, DefenderX's reply wasn't an actual reply to the spambot, he likely just wrote a reply to the OP.

The whole point of this thread is that people don't want to waste their time going through each of the spammed threads and look if someone uselessly answered. Remember that, unlike in this example, spammers often manage to get more than 2 posts done.

[Zee530]

God, the 2nd pic was hilarious so i see your concern. Spammers we can find but is there any exact sure way to identify a bot? i remember one some weeks ago talking about video games, so they are getting smarter.

[neobrain]

It's pretty obvious when they have links in their signature. You can also search for all of their posts and look if they a) always talk about the same stuff or b) don't make any sense c) talk about something different than the actual topic.

[NaturalViolence]

-Links to a variety of products in the signature
-Posts about how great said products are and has terrible spelling/grammar

How the hell could anyone not figure out that that was a spambot?

[Axxer]

They skim?

[NaturalViolence]

It's pretty hard to miss the bright blue links.

[Axxer]

There is a lot of blue on the screen though, so maybe for color blind people. Other than that, DefenderX just failed.