[wp-forums] PR and Spam

[ifelse]

This is one of the instances where there's a stronger argument for the
use of nofollow.

As this is a support forum, I can't see any major reason for link
juice to be provided to any of the hyperlinks even when the URL is
legitimate. Whilst this will not deter 'spammers', it will at least
mean that we're also reducing their possible gain.

> Maybe a radio button - is the site Safe For Work ?
For spammers, this will have no effect at all. They'll ignore it just
the same way they ignore ethical conduct.

> Maybe we should start using a 'spam?' tag ? After all, if one person says "This looks like spam" and a mod agrees, then it goes ?
This has promise especially as it'll mean a single page (for mods) to
check up and address critical issues. Perhaps we can extend this line
of reasoning to use a 'mod_look' tag so that we can use it to tag
other posts as well such as:
dupes
security vulnerabilities
unproductive off-topic discussions


On 8/13/05, Podz <podz at tamba2.org.uk> wrote:
> I've just deleted a post from a user who - by just looking at the post
> itself - was innocuous enough. But their member profile pointed at a
> porn site. I missed it but macmanx was on the ball.
> Looking at the registration form, the website is not compulsory so maybe
> we need a message there ?
> There are some long-standing and genuine WP users who have adult content
> so we can't say don't link to that sort of site, but should we be doing
> somethign to help look after those members who help when they are at
> work ? Hitting a NSFW site when all they want to do is help isn't going
> to do us any favours.
> Maybe a radio button - is the site Safe For Work ?
> 
> But then a spammer / PR leech will just say Yes - and again we do have
> people whose profile does not point to a WP site.
> 
> As it is right now, this member -
> http://wordpress.org/support/profile/27393 - will be linked to by the
> SE's on their next visit.
> 
> Nofollow profiles ?
> Say that dodgy URL's will be deleted ?
> 
> Or is the code to deal with this already in the works ?
> 
> Maybe we should start using a 'spam?' tag ? After all, if one person
> says "This looks like spam" and a mod agrees, then it goes ? Or the
> other day someone posted on an old thread - their first post they put
> their URL in 3 times to illustrate mod_rewrite problems. Amazingly, they
> had saved the world less than 5 minutes later. I edited the post to
> break the url (aren't spaces useful !) so it was still readable by us,
> but to a SE bot it was not a href. Is that okay ?
> 
> P.
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-- 
Phu
http://ifelse.co.uk