I’ve noticed troublesome amounts of what seem to be spam answers to some of the questions I go to answer, although they all appear to come from different users (meaning either someone has a handy dandy botnet, Y!A’s letting many accounts come from the same addresses, or — most implausibly — someone is actually posting these answers of their own volition). They all seem to follow the same format of a few keywords or a key phrase followed by a link (usually to a Blogspot blog), and nothing else, and the users have no avatars. I mostly tend to answer questions in the Computers & Internet section, so I’m not sure if the problem extends to other sections as well.
I guess my question is: Should I start reporting these answers as I find them (i.e. will it actually help Y!A staff weed out the spammers)? Will firing off reports willy-nilly (as there seem to be quite a few to report) damage my “trust rating”?
Examples:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsYhm.aWLJVKShLAs1QtB5do7hR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080812092249AATvoUU (Bfxfgb B’s answer)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AjhMQIQAGrPAGWkalhnmGF9o7hR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080812084537AAjupol (Jone S’ answer)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AsSDDemp_uV97GFAYQVbS.Zo7hR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080812083217AAPN4me (oddly enough, a different “jone s”)
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AvmajvET.vjHD50U2qIOUQdo7hR.;_ylv=3?qid=20080812083158AAs91WA (jgj f, jone s, and probably Corene B)
Y!A kind of counts on the Answers police (us-LOL)..
I think, as long as they are valid, you should continue to report them. A couple of those seem awfully closely related,
you are saving some of the rest of us from having to view those, as well.
I try to read all the answers and put my one thumb’s worth in there if I like the answer, whether it is right or wrong… sometimes funny. I think that the spam and the hateful answers need to be reported to ensure that there is a pleasant experience by all the members on here.
Someone has to keep those bozo’s in check, huh? LOL
Check with Y!A rules, and see if they have a limit on how many you should report before they start flagging you as a problem.
Report Spam/Abuse
These answers do not only look like spam, they are! If you find a suspicious looking answer, click on the avatar to check the user’s profile. If you find they have posted the same or very similar answers to all sorts of questions, and if the link only goes to a blog which doesn’t have an answer to the question, you found a spambot! Once you start checking, you’ll find other spambots answering to the same questions, and if you have enough time, please report all of them, because without reports YA can’t get rid of such crap! The other day I found a botnet on YA with 23 different spambots, meanwhile all of those accounts are deleted. Be prepared to see them come back with different accounts, but don’t let that stop you! If we all don’t start reporting such spammers and scammers it will only be worse!
Edit: to make one thing perfectly clear – if you would accuse and report other users falsely, you might get problems, but reporting spammers accurately might even turn you into a “trusted reporter”. Yahoo doesn’t disclose how and when they regard you as a TR, but you’ll notice that the spam answers you report will disappear almost immediately! There is also NO limit on how many of these fake answers you can report during a day as YA depends on users who help the community by doing just that.
Report Spam/Abuse
I got a spam answer once that put a lot of porn images on my computer yet it was disguised similar to your links above. I reported it, because I couldn’t get the images to stop popping up until I cleared out the cache and rebooted the system. Very disturbing. I am just getting used to some mean answers, but if they are vulgar I report them. But if we report too much they start ‘monitoring’ you lol so just be careful I guess. I try to follow the community guidelines but I’ve been reported too. I don’t know if it will help them weed out spammers, but it should help some…just that you want to stay under the radar so to speak (in my opinion) so you don’t start getting ‘noticed’ for over reporting. Just a thought. I don’t think there really is a perfect answer for any of these on here because there are all types of people on here! Good luck, thanks for helping keep our community safe.
Report Spam/Abuse