Flag profile comments as spam

A spammer left a very inappropriate comment on my profile today. The user who left the comment has been flagged as spam and "provisionally suspended", but it would be nice to have a way to mark the specific comments as spam. Yes, I can (and will) just delete it, but it would be nice if it could be marked as spam.

This also made me think of people who don't log in to LT as often as I do and might go weeks or months with a gross comment on their profile if they don't know it's there and it doesn't disappear due to people flagging it as spam.

If the spammer who left the comment gets fully banned, what happens to their profile comments? Do they go away?

>2 norabelle414: If the profile comment is still on your profile, then I'd say the answer is no, they don't go away. You can delete it now, but I'm not sure what happens to it once you delete it.

I say this only because in LT, it seems that nothing is ever really "deleted" but rather just marked as deleted. Either way, you won't have to see it any more.

Hopefully @timspalding will show up here and add some further clarification.

>3 Lyndatrue:

Really that's just standard database behavior. The only reason it's different on LT is that you know about it.

If this is still a problem, give me the name of the member and I'll see if it's something we can solve.

>4 lorax: Of course. I mentioned it only because it seems to surprise some members. I'm pretty sure that the only "database" applications where this isn't true aren't really databases (and I really REALLY miss Sleepycat, speaking of hash tables).

>5 timspalding:
https://www.librarything.com/profile/citorudo5

I posted about it in spam fighters and he was promptly flagged by many. The message was not removed or hidden when he was flagged, so I deleted it myself.

I never seen spammy books, nor being able to understand this terminology..and it`s strane to me why spam flagging is supported for books and not for comments!!
I see users reported spammy books.. but comments etc should have been suppotred in the first place.

The problem I know with books is assigning ISBNs (of old books)to new books, instead of buying new ones.. else, I don`t know what is to be meant by spammy books....

>8 cairoartsjp: They're not real books. Sometimes spammers will enter a "book" in their catalog which is just a link to the website they are spamming for.

>8 cairoartsjp:

It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but you still run across a spammy book once in a while, like norabelle describes.

@norabelle414 @lorax
Thanks for letting me understand it!

Bump. I got a spam message today and even though the user has been suspended the message is still on my wall. In this case it is a private message so no one can see it, and I will manually delete it.

However, if it were not a private message and I did not log in as often as I do it would just sit there forever as free advertisement for spammers.

>12 norabelle414: Me too! May well be the same user. I deleted it.

Me three! Offer of an e-book, from India? Mine wasn't private, though.

Same message here. I just deleted the message (not private) so no one will see it anymore. This is the first time this has happened to me in approximately 8 years so hopefully it is a rare event.

>15 krazy4katz: Would you mind pointing me to the member who left the offending message? I'll at least go in and delete all the messages they sent.

>16 lorannen: Here's where it all began (over on Spam Fighters):

http://www.librarything.com/topic/225246#5662207

Here's the profile:

https://www.librarything.com/profile/docmiteow

>17 Lyndatrue: Thanks for pointing that out. Got those all deleted. It's pretty unusual for spammers to hit profile comments. While I'm not sure we're likely to implement this RSI (flagging of profile comments) any time soon—mostly because it would require a lot of work, not because it's not worth doing—I'm checking with Tim to see if, at the very least, we can get profile comments sent by accounts that have been suspended for spam activity deleted automatically.

>18 lorannen: You are, as usual, a rescuer of us all. I do gently want to point out that it seems reasonable, at first blush, to automatically delete those comments, BUT, now and then someone gets suspended by accident (as it were), and what would then happen to their comments?

Maybe a little time lag built in before deletion might be wise.

>19 Lyndatrue: Right—that's a big part of why we haven't done this in the past. But, especially if this becomes a new habit for spammers, we'll have to do something to address it. If we do move in the direction of automatically removing profile comments sent my accounts suspended for spam activity, we'd also have to make it so that reinstating the account restores their profile comments, as well.

>18 lorannen: Loranne Docmiteow also spammed my comments this morning at a little after 9am. It was sent as a Private Message

It does happen now and again, but usually, as in this case, an overenthusiastic author who hasn't thought through what the effect is of this kind of behaviour.

>18 lorannen: I think that your sweep for the comments from our latest spammer only got those that were public. My other account has a private comment, and it's still there. I'll check back in the morning (which comes a LOT later for me than for you).

>21 bhabeck: and >23 Lyndatrue: Very strange. I thought I got them all yesterday (I reactivated their account temporarily, signed in as them, and deleted all their sent profile comments). However, it looks like I missed a bunch, all of which were posted hours before I went on my deletion spree. Trying again. Let me know if I still haven't got them?

ETA: It might take me a while, since there are dozens more sent comments than I initially saw. I'll update this post when I'm done.

>24 lorannen:

I saw the comment on my profile yesterday morning, but did not get the email from LT notifying me of it until almost midnight. There's another (legit) comment on my profile that was posted shortly after 7:00 a.m. yesterday, and that notification did not arrive until almost midnight as well.

I've never had that significant a delay in receiving notices of new comments. I don't know if that's related.

>24 lorannen: That's definitely possible. I'm wondering if the comments just hadn't appeared yet—this individual sent so many of them in such a short amount of time that I wouldn't be surprised if it slowed down the entire thing.

Occasionally, I've seen server lag issues cause notifications of comments to be sent hours after the comment was posted. Everything's back in sync now, though.

>24 lorannen: Mine's gone, now, for what that's worth. Man, that was one serious spammer, and for someone who is an "author" you think he'd have made more effort to at least write well.

Okay, I think I've got them all this time. This individual posted 601 comments before they were stopped yesterday. Oy. I'll check back in a couple hours to make sure there weren't any further comments hiding.

>28 lorannen: the message is gone. thank you.

Bump. Another profile message spammer today: http://www.librarything.com/profile/Hester121

I'm still seeing the message from >30 norabelle414: on the profiles of many people who are not active users of LT (and thus are not around to delete it themselves). That account says it has been provisionally suspended, but it's been 6 months.

Today a spammer sent a bunch of friend requests: http://www.librarything.com/profile/mariacoleman
This doesn't have the same effect as a profile message spammer, because there are no spam links or information in the friend request itself, but they are still messages from a spammer which will sit on users' profiles forever unless deleted by the individual users.

>32 norabelle414:

Have you got an example I can look at?

Never mind. Found.

Okay, they're marked. See https://www.librarything.com/topic/270618

Thank you SO MUCH!!