tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique)

federico poloni comments on "Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique" (21893)

federico poloni — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 07:17:55 -0700

I already reported this trick on meta some months ago: http://tea.mathoverflow.net/discussion/1413/manually-closing-questions/#Item_1

ykallus comments on "Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique" (21823)

ykallus — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 20:50:39 -0700

Could this recent question be related to the two recent questions by the user http://mathoverflow.net/users/32488/bill-dripps ?

Zev Chonoles comments on "Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique" (21821)

Zev Chonoles — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 17:54:38 -0700

This tactic was just used on a recent question. It's not spam, though perhaps not of a high enough level for MO (I'm not sure I can judge).

grp comments on "Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique" (21471)

grp — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 08:35:13 -0800

That technique appeared on MathOverflow at least once before.
The little I remember was that the question might have been
marginal, but was more mathematical and noncommercial than
suggested by the question Andrew mentions above.

I think that question got closed or ignored quickly enough, so
I am not too worried about its use. It's a good idea to make
more members aware of putting [closed] in titles, and probably
ending titles with "open?" will wear thin quickly.

Gerhard "Is Clopen A Question Status?" Paseman, 2013.02.25

Andrew Stacey comments on "Intriguing anti-anti-spam technique" (21464)

Andrew Stacey — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 04:51:21 -0800

This question hopefully won't be visible for that much longer (indeed, gone already), but I thought I'd bring to attention its title:

[Closed] Huge Relief Unlock/Jailbreak iphone 5,4S,4 iOS 6.1.2 and iPad 4,3,2 Untehtered Produced

That [Closed] was put there by the original poster. The one that the software inserts is put at the end of the post. I suspect the idea was that folks would think it had already been closed and therefore not bother to click through and vote-to-close it.

Fortunately it looks like enough people voted it down to kick it off the site.

Anyway, I thought it a tactic worth noting so that people are aware of it. And to remember (not that it seems needed given the speed this one was dealt with) that even if a spam post is closed, there are other actions that can be taken that will speed its exit (though possibly not pursued by a bear) such as voting down and flagging as spam.