Doesn't SE catch spam messages?

Question

The user onemetersunshine created 9 spam posts in 20 minutes that follow a specific schema, and contain 2 links to the same site.

Doesn't SE software automatically detect such posts, or is there a setting that needs to be enabled for a stricter control over possible spam posts?

Jeff Atwood · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-26 12:16:33Z

2

Let's see:

se 2.0 sites do not implement the question rate limiter (6 Qs per day per user, 60 Qs per month per user). Doubt these were questions.
the standard rate limiters of 2 minutes per answer, 5 minutes per question are still in place
there is auto-flagging of duplicate answers, but we do not block them -- we do block duplicate questions. Assuming the user had similar enough text posted for each answer.
for new users, if a LOT of your answers are flagged, deleted, downvoted, etc you will be auto-blocked. I doubt there was enough voting, deleting, or flagging in that 20 minute interval for this to work (but it probably took effect later).

answered Jun 26, 2011 at 12:16

Jeff Atwood

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I thought there were a question rate limiter. The reason I was wondering about a mechanism for blocking spam posts is that I have never seen 5 spam posts posted from the same user like that, and I thought there were an option to check such posts that needed to be set for each site. When I asked the question, DA was the only site where I have ever seen consecutive spam, and it's in beta. From your answer I see it's just a matter of community action, if I have never seen more than one spam on SO.
– avpaderno Mod
Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 12:29
@kia I highly doubt these were questions? I always see spam as answers. You said "9 spam posts in 20 minutes" and 2 * 9 = 18 minutes. Entirely possible for answers.
– Jeff Atwood
Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 12:34
I got that; I was referring to the "se 2.0 sites do not implement the question rate limiter" you wrote. Should not it be "sites do implement"? If nothing has changed, last time I have read that a limit for question was being implemented, which caused some question on meta.SO about why the OP could not ask more questions.
– avpaderno Mod
Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 12:38
2

@kia they do not implement this because we felt the risk was too high. Once your site is getting 100+ questions per day (like SU or SF), or 3,500+ questions per day (like SO), we'll talk. :) stackexchange.com/sites?sort=questionsperday&expand=true
– Jeff Atwood
Commented Jun 26, 2011 at 12:44

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