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There is a particular user who seems to be posting really weird, unrelated "answers" to a particular question. The answers seem to contain HTML code that is supposed to generate spam, in my opinion. Additionally, I saw another answer to the question which seems to me like an unsolicited advertisement and is thus spam too. Therefore, all the answers on the question effectively qualify as spam. I didn't know what to do with them, so I flagged the answers as such. Additionally, here is the link to the (unregistered) user: https://superuser.com/users/290817/chenchuanwen

Can these answers be deleted and the user destroyed?

2 Answers 2

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We can't/don't block IPs, too many false positives with that. I've destroyed the user.

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  • I've read somewhere in the help center a while ago that IPs are blocked in some cases. Are such blocks no longer implemented?
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:31
  • And why is the fourth answer not an unsolicited advertisement?
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:32
  • One more question: Should the question be protected too?
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:33
  • @gparyani there is an internal spam monitoring system that may restrict contributions from certain IPs, but it cannot be manually activated by moderators. We aren't able to provide any public details about the system, to prevent spammers gaming it.
    – nhinkle
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:52
  • @nhinkle Do you think the question should be protected? I mean, I know that each user is only considered once for the 3 deleted answers from new users criteria for being protected by Community.
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:57
  • there's no need to protect right now. If required, question will get auto-protected. it was random spam from one user trying to spam.
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:58
  • @Sathya As I said in the last comment, the question seems to target spam, but the 3 deleted answers are just considered one since they were posted by the same author for protection by Community.
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 4:59
  • I mean, I'm not asking for protection. I'm just asking if it is a good idea.
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 5:01
  • What about my second comment? Why is the fourth answer not an unsolicited advertisement? Seems like one to me, but my spam flag is listed as "declined - a moderator reviewed your flag, but found no evidence to support it" in my flag history. Why is that?
    – gparyani
    Jan 17, 2014 at 5:03
  • @gparyani because it isn't an unsolicited advertisement. It's not the right answer, but it's not spam either. Spam flags are reserved for strictly unsolicited, or out of scope posts or blatant ads. The other answer isn't one. Use downvotes for such.
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Jan 17, 2014 at 5:52
  • @Sathya SPAM flags are also used against trolls...
    – Braiam
    Jan 17, 2014 at 12:17
  • 3
    @Braiam err.. no, that should never be the case. If there's something offense, use the offensive flag. If trolling probably use the custom mod flag. Spam is strictly for spammers.
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Jan 17, 2014 at 12:29
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    @Sathya Tim don't think so: you should definitely not flag something as spam that is not a blatant advertisement or purely nonsensical trolling attempt of some sort.
    – Braiam
    Jan 17, 2014 at 14:52
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Looks like XSS attack attempts to me. The text of the posts is actually JavaScript code, and it seems the user was trying to harvest user data. These 10k-only links should make that clear: 1 2 3

Here's one of them (URL removed):

var message = "<a href='(...)'>(...) message);
                dicParam.MyAdd("display-name", base.Nickname);
                dicParam.MyAdd("m-address", base.Email);
                string i1lUrl = GetRequestUrl("/questions/ticks");
                string i1l = HttpHelper.Get(i1lUrl, puri).Body;
                dicParam.MyAdd("i1l", i1l);
                dicParam.Remove("legalLinksShown");
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  • Can you include some screenshots not uploaded using Imgur?
    – gparyani
    Feb 25, 2014 at 7:16
  • @gparyani why not Imgur?
    – bwDraco
    Feb 25, 2014 at 7:23
  • 1
    It's blocked in my local network.
    – gparyani
    Feb 25, 2014 at 7:24
  • Permanent OneDrive link for reference: 1drv.ms/1duHQup
    – gparyani
    Feb 25, 2014 at 17:08

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