I understand that a large Q&A site like StackOverflow is facing many big problems like duplicate questions, questions that can not be answered objectively or plain rubbish questions coming in large numbers every day.
Obviously, these problems can not be solved by a small staff of administrators. Community moderation is the only way to go – you let long time users with good score to edit, close or delete questions.
Most of the time it works really well and is a win-win for both site owner and moderators. Owner gets free labour, moderators get to satisfy their urge for showing their power over “lesser” users.
This model, however, stops working when some of the mods, like one particular moderator on StackOverflow, proceed to closing a question and deleting it without actually reading it and understanding it.
Today I was asking if there was a forum software that:
- Is implemented with PHP and MySQL
- Allows anonymous posting
- Has extensive HTTP API for listing, adding and deleting threads and posts
- Has +1/-1 voting for posts
And my question was closed and later deleted because, according to the moderator, it was considered “not well formed” and “not suitable for Q&A format”.
If the moderator had actually red it and had any amount of basic human iteligence (no need to be an expert here), he would understand that it was a very specific, almost “yes or no” type of question.
It was a very well formed and objective question for a concrete answer – either “no, there is no such forum” or “yes and it’s called …”.
Unfortunately due to moderators like this one, my question didn’t get answered, despite the many people on StackOferflow with experience with various PHP forums that could answer it.
Not only did I lose the answer to my question, I also lost much of my faith in StackExchange Q&A network and their operating model in general.
StackOverflow has helped me out many times by providing the briefest and most on-subject answers to my programming questions in Google search. It’s a pity that it hasn’t been as helpful for providing answers to my own questions that haven’t been asked already.
Loan spam – worldwide brainwashing attempt?
Posted under Technology
I’ve been receiving very strange and creepy form of comment spam in one of my websites.
Usually unwanted ads or “Type 1 spam” is intended to advertise a product or service and, therefore, includes a link to sellers website or, at least, mentions the name of product or service.
More recently a new kind of spam – “Type 2″ that features seemingly random strings of characters or purposefully misspelled generic phrases, has gained popularity. This spam serves as a test mechanism to see which websites can’t deal with spam and are best suited for Type 1 attacks.
This is done by systematically checking what percentage of Type 2 messages remain in Google index after a set period of time. Purpusfully misspelled words and random looking character combinations are there to help these systems easily identify Type 2 spam posts from the rest.
This latest form spam, however, does not fall into either category and, therefore, qualifies as “Type 3″. What I don’t understand is what is the purpose behind it.
All messages talk about loans and have a common message – taking loans is good, loans make your dream come true, lending makes people happy, etc.
Is this a desperate attempt to alter public opinion on lending? A large scale brainwashing attempt on worldwide English speaking population?
Here are three loan spam posts that I received recently. Notice – I replaced “loan” with “scam” just to make sure this article doesn’t serve as an extension of this evil evil brainwashing scheme.
… and “loan” and “scam” are synonyms anyway.