h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What I still can't see in the announcement is a description of how to sound the spam alert. Better yet this should be in the house rules themselves under the definition of spam where people are more likely to read it. If spam is to be reported to the moderators on a once-only rather than per posting button press, what is the correct sort of wording to use, eg "SPAM ALERT" in big capitals? Otherwise is there an official email address which is manned at all hours (and minutes!). Individual staff email wouldn't work, so I would assume the h2g2.moderators one is intended but that brings back the wording issue combined this time with the best way of specifying a thread location for a whole range of posts instead of just one.

As I said in Posting 29:

"If it happens out of office hours and none of the Editors are online, then use the complaints button and ask that the spamming/flooding escalation procedure is activated. The Moderators can alert their supervisors, who will alert us to the problem."

You can use the wording I've suggested there. "ask that the spamming/flooding escalation procedure is activated"

I agree with Sef on the issue of alerting to a whole area. Hopefully now it won't be as bad as the last spam attack, but spending hours on a Sunday afternoon Yikesing approximately 300 posts was bad enough for me, never mind Mort (who did approx 700-1000) but also the moderators who had to wade through all the emails in the mods account.

"As I said in Posting 29"

You are missing the point, Mina. The evidence I've seen on this site suggests that most people barely read the help pages let alone the threads beneath them even if those contain "vital" information/amendments. In a month or so (though possibly more with this particular page) a thread will have fallen off the immediate list and only be seen by the most dedicated of backlog trawlers.

The correct place for the "how to" information is on the page itself or another page to which you refer. I don't think it was even finally decided within the thread to which you refer in the announcement (again assuming people would follow the link to the consultation discussion). I still think something as important as this needs to be where people might run into it anyway and can find/re-find it easily/quickly (eg by memory or search). That place is probably the <./>HouseRules</.> page.

It seems a good policy to me, to protect the quality of this site.


Greatings from Amsterdam,

To the Editors
Will someone be kind enough to tell me just what all this kerfuffle amounts to .
Please explain the term 'spam' .I had been asked (by the editors) to copy and paste some stories from the World War 11 conversation . Does this constitute 'spam' ?
Tommy Mac

Tommy,

Spam is repeatedly posting to the site in a high volume of posts over a short period of time. They are complete rubbish postings, non-sequiters if you will.

The recent spammer posted thousands of entries a couple of weekends ago which the community and the Italics had to deal with. It was time consuming and boring for everyone involved reading the same old site over and over as each post had to be individually yikesed.

I hope that answers your question

KJ

Sounds like we have a plan.

Got to ask though is it going to continue to be necessary to yikes every spam message if we use the comment about invoking the escalation process? In recent atttacks it was an extremely repetative process for a lot of people. Email accounts were flooded and I am sure whoever (the moderator) was at the recieving end could have done with a few less messages.

Hath

I didn't realize such an outbreak of spamming
had occurred. Yes, by all means, do whatever
it takes to stem the tide.

Tommy,

You'd have to ask the Editors of the WW2 site, because the House Rules can be interpreted slightly differently by each site. If they've asked you to do something, I expect you're all right.